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FUNDAMENTALS OF 
FREETHOUGHT 


BY 

MARSHALL J. GAUVIN 

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Lecturer Twin City Rationalist Society, Minneapolis, Minnesota 
Author of “The Illustrated Story of Evolution,” etc. 


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NEW YORK 

PETER ECKLER PUBLISHING CO. 

1923 

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Copyright, 1922, By 
PETER ECKLER PUBLISHING CO 


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PREFACE 


Fundamentals of Freethought has been chosen 
for the title of this book because each of the 
studies it contains deals with a question of funda¬ 
mental importance in the field of religious 
thought. 

Whether there is or is not in the universe a 
God—a conscious, controlling being who knows 
our wants and answers our petitions; whether 
Christ was an actual historical character, or an 
ideal elder brother evolved out of man’s religious 
yearning—a figment of the imagination—a myth; 
whether, assuming that there existed a quite 
human, Jewish peasant preacher named Jesus 
who was put to death, he really triumphed over the 
tomb and arose from the dead; whether we are 
or are not destined to enjoy another life—these 
questions, like the others discussed in this book, 
sound the depths of religious belief. They ask for 
a rehearing of the evidence for religion’s major 
assumptions. They examine the foundations on 
which religion rests. 

The facts involved in each study not alone 
justify but demand the attitude of Freethought— 


PREFACE 


a frank facing of reality as seen in the light of 
reason. 

Alike in the consideration of religious and 
secular questions the Freethinker relies on reason 
as the only guide to truth. The Christian, on 
the contrary, puts his trust in faith as the deter¬ 
minant of truth in religious matters. But a 
moment’s’ reflection will suffice to show that faith 
is not a faculty of the mind, but mere acceptance, 
belief, trust. Reason, on the other hand, is a 
faculty—the faculty with which we resolve prob¬ 
lems, weigh evidence and determine the relative 
values of thoughts and things, the faculty with 
which we judge and determine the merit or 
demerit of any proposition. 

Being the critical faculty, the arbiter of the 
mind, reason is the instrumentality with which we 
distinguish, as best we may, the true from the 
false. Consequently, reason is the mind’s 
supreme judge, and faith, acting in a subordinate 
capacity, has no other legitimate office than to 
accept and be governed by the decisions of this 
court. Intelligent faith is therefore faith guided 
by reason; while faith unsupported by reason is 
mere credulity, and faith contrary to reason is 
superstition. 

Nor can the Christian rationally oppose to 
this fundamental fact what he regards as a revel¬ 
ation from heaven. For if the Bible is addressed 
to man, it must be addressed to his reason, since 

iv 


PREFACE 


reason is the only faculty that can read and 
understand it. Accordingly, it is for reason to 
say whether that book is wise or foolish, humane 
or cruel, harmonious or contradictory, the perfect 
work of an infinite God or the fallible production 
of mistaken men. 

The truth or untruth of what is called 
‘‘ revelation ’’ must therefore be determined by 
reason. Likewise, the existence of God, the 
reality of Christ, the promise of heaven and the 
threat of hell, must abide the verdict of the brain. 
Into the court of the human intellect every claim 
made in the name of religion must appear for 
judgment. Religion, that is to say, must find its 
sanctions in humanity. 

Freethought alone is the foundation on which 
can be erected the house of truth, and in showing 
that the claims of religion crumble at the touch 
or reason, this book lays down fundamentals of 
Freethought—foundation stones of the religion 
of humanity. 

Marshall J. Gauvix. 

Pittsburgh, Pa. 

September 25, 1922 




CONTENTS 


Is There a Real God ?.......... 


1 


Man invented gods in his effort to account for the 
phenomena of nature. As the knowledge that the 
universe is governed by law advances, belief in 
God disappears. 


Did Jesus Christ Really Live?.. 39 

In early Christianity, Christ was a personified idea. 

For this idea a life story was afterwards invented. 

St. Paul knows nothing of the Christ of the Gospels, 
concerning whom contemporary history is wholly 
silent. 


Did Jesus Christ Rise From The Dead?.... 73 

The story of the resurrection of Christ is one of 
many similar stories. Nobody saw the resurrection 
take place. The contradictory narratives in the 
Gospels prove the astounding claim a fable. 


The Bible a Dangerous Moral Guide.. 105 

The scriptures uphold all the major forms of im¬ 
morality. Humanity has made moral progress in 
proportion as the Bible has been left behind. 


Is There a Life After Death?.. ... 137 

The mind or soul as a function of the brain dies 
with the brain. Immortal life is unthinkable, un¬ 
desirable, and in a universe of endless change, 
impossible. 


One Hundred Contradictions in the Bible 175 

The contradictions in the Bible certify that that 
book is not the word of God, and that we need not 
believe it since its writers did not believe one 
another. 



















IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


From the early morning of the world, until 
very recent times, the best energies of mankind 
have been wasted in the worship of gods. All 
these gods have been naturally produced. They 
originated in the minds of men who, by their 
invention, sought to account for the facts of 
nature. The poor savage found himself surround¬ 
ed by phenomena he did not understand. Know¬ 
ing nothing of natural law and order, ignorant of 
the relation of cause and effect, his simple mind 
was terrified and amazed by the things that he 
observed. The plaintive moan of the wailing 
wind, the thunder’s awful roar, the lightning’s 
blinding flash, the devastating flood, the lingering 
disease that tortured and deformed, and death 
that stilled the voices of the ones he loved, con¬ 
vinced him of the presence of evil powers that 
worked to bring about his ruin. 

But there were other things that seemed to 
strive in his behalf. The genial warmth of the 
sun, the soft light of the moon, the pleasant 

showers of summer days, the abundance of fish 

1 



IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


and forest foods, and the health and happiness 
that he enjoyed—these led him to believe that 
some of nature’s powers were his devoted friends. 
Thus all the friendly and unfriendly phenomena 
were personified; and thus were made the gods. 
The savage mind filled the earth and air with 
friends and foes. Whatever brought him good was 
a friend—a god; whatever brought him harm 
was a foe—a devil. To him, nothing was natural. 
Everything that happened had a supernatural 
cause. The world was filled with miracles and 
marvels. All things were the sport and prey of 
good and evil gods. 

These beliefs have been common to certain 
stages of mental development the world over. To 
the savage tribes of our own day, the wind and 
sky, the sun and sea are personalities. Not only 
have nature’s forces been made into gods, but 
also nearly every kind of bird and beast has 
been deified and worshipped. Among the 
Thlinkit Indians the crow is worshipped as the 
supreme god. The hawk is the god of the people 
of North Borneo. The Bijagis of Africa pay 
divine honors to a goat. The dog is worshipped 
by the Nosarii of Western Asia. The leopard is 
believed to be a god by many tribes in Western 
Africa. Among the Siberian tribes great rever¬ 
ences is paid to the bear. The monkey-god, 

Hanuman, is worshipped in India. In Siam the 

2 



IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


white elephant is sacred; it is believed that it 
may contain the soul of a Buddha. Even the 
loathsome lizard is deified by the people of the 
Pacific; and for many thousand years, serpent 
Worship has been common in many parts of the 
World. Nor have savage tribes been alone in 
Worshipping animals as gods. The Egyptians, 
whose civilization is still the wonder of the 
world, worshipped as a god the bull Apis. To 
this god, they sacrified white oxen; from him the 
priests pretended to receive sacred oracles; and 
when he died he was mummified and buried in a 
rock tomb, another bull being worshipped in his 
stead. 

As man has advanced from savagery to civ¬ 
ilization, he has improved the character of his 
gods. The highest conception of man is man; 
therefore, the evolution of God has been towards 
the human form. 

To the Egyptians, Osiris was the Lord of 
Lords—the sum of all the noblest agencies. 
Sometimes he was represented as the sun, 
sometimes as the river Nile, and sometimes as a 
man, wearing on his head a crown, a globe or a 
lotos-flower. His wife was the goddess Isis, the 
mother of Horus; and her worship continued for 
several thousand years. 

In India, the great Brahma, the master of 

fate and life and death, is still represented with 

3 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


four heads and as many arms. In his four hands 
he holds a manuscript of the sacred Vedas—the 
inspired Bible of the Hindoos. 

The Greek god Zeus bore the perfect human 
form. He was the father of all men and the king 
of all gods. His special interest was the pro¬ 
tection of the stranger, the suppliant, the family 
and the nation. His consort was Hera, though 
other goddesses and some mortal women shared 
his love, and bore him many gods and goddesses. 

Jupiter, the Roman, was worshipped as the 
best and greatest of the gods. In his hand he 
held a sceptre, symbolizing his supreme author¬ 
ity. With his wife, Juno, the queen of heaven, 
he watched over the lives of the Romans, and 
carefully protected their property. The greatest 
triumph of human art was the colossal statue 
of Jupiter Olympus made in ivory and gold by 
the immortal Phidias. Standing below these 
supreme gods in the order of divinity were mul¬ 
titudes of lesser gods. The attributes and 
passions were deified, and every department of 
human activity was presided over by some par¬ 
ticular divinity. 

All these gods were worshipped in gorgeous 
temples; all were attended by robed and solemn 
priests, who offered them sacrifices and per- 
formed their sacred rites; their statues crowded 

the pantheons; their loves, and hates and riv-* 

4 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 

allies, their good and evil deeds, made up the 
popular mythologies; and countless millions of 
human beings believed them to be real, and wor¬ 
shipped them with pious adoration. It seems 
almost incredible that highly civilized nations 
should have been, for so many centuries, so thor¬ 
oughly deceived. It seems amazing that rational 
human beings should have invented gods and 
then have fallen to their knees and worshipped 
them. 

Yet so it was. In the names of scores of false 
gods, priests have proclaimed promises and 
threats. In the names of these gods, countless 
prophesies have been made. At the command 
of priests, millions have sacrificed to these im¬ 
aginary phantoms, their flocks and herds, their 
precious babes, their liberty and their very lives. 
Nothing is more cruelly sad than the history of 
religion! No suffering has been greater than 
that which man has borne in the worship of the 
gods, that he has made. 

Now, if the idea of God has been a slow 
and painful growth in the human mind, if the 
savage was mistaken in deifying the powers of 
the world, if the mighty nations of antiquity 
worshipped a host of gods that were but children 
born of the imagination of poets and of priests, 
why may not the Jews have been mistaken in 

their worship of Jehovah? If the splendid Zeus 

5 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


of the intellectual Greek was but a poet’s dream, 
what evidence can there be that the deity of the 
uncultured Jews was the true and only God? If 
the mighty Jupiter, who led to victory the gal¬ 
lant armies of imperial Rome, was hut a figment 
of the brain, where shall we find the proof that 
the god of barbaric slaves was the God who 
framed a universe of stars? 

Jehovah was the god of a few wandering 
tribes. These tribes finally settled in Palestine, 
a bleak and barren corner of the world, a wil¬ 
derness of mountains and rocks. They were 
without art, without science, without commerce. 
They had no navy and their army was but a 
plundering horde that butchered women and 
babes. They lived in miserable tents and huts. 
They had no schools or colleges and knew no 
system of education. For many centuries, they 
had no written language and possessed no line 
of literature. They were woefully ignorant, 
pitiably poor, cruel to the last degree, and be¬ 
nighted in the most frightful superstitions. For 
ages, they sacrified their sons and daughters to 
their imaginary god, and afterwards sought for 
many centuries to appease the wrath of their di¬ 
vinity by the sacrifice of a ceaseless procession of 
oxen, lambs and doves. Surrounded by many 
nations whose civilizations are to-day yet mighty 
in their ruins, the ancient Jews have left no evi- 

6 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


dence to indicate that they were aught but 
barbarians. 

The religion of the Jews made them narrow 
and fanatical. They imagined themselves the 
chosen children of the Deity, and looked on other 
people as the objects of God’s revenge and 
wrath. And yet, nearly always, they were the 
slaves of stronger nations; and while the other 
peoples flourished and prospered, they remained 
miserable, poor and despised. If history proves 
anything, it proves that the religion of the Jews 
has been to them an unadulterated curse. I ask 
again, why should we believe that the god of such 
a people is a real and supreme being? 

It may be well to note that in earlier times 
Jehovah was not the god of the Jews. He was 
the god of the Midianites, an Arabian by birth. 
From the Midianites the Jews borrowed him, and 
we, in turn, borrowed him from the Jews. Je¬ 
hovah was a tribal god. He was worshipped as 
the god of war. In this respect, however, he was 
not alone. Even in the limited territory of 
Canaan, he had to share military honors with 
several other tribal gods. In times of war, the 
Sidonians put their trust in Ashtoreth; the 
Ammonites prayed to Milcom; the Moabites 
relied on Chemosh, and the Jews sought victory 
at the hands of Jehovah. 

By and by the Jews began to write. Their 

7 


i 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


literature took a religious form. They wrote 
their hatred and contempt of other nations, 
magnified themselves and glorified their god. 
They made Jehovah mightier than all the other 
gods combined. Stories of victories were inven¬ 
ted to illustrate his power and protection. He 
was represented as conversing with their ances¬ 
tors, leading them in their migrations, giving 
them their laws, establishing their religion, 
watching over their lives, helping them to kill 
surrounding nations to get possession of their 
land, and making them in every way his chosen 
and beloved race. Fanatical prophets and lying 
priests solemnized their fabrications by frequent¬ 
ly repeating, 4 ‘Thus saith the Lord,” and the 
nation was kept in intellectual slavery and 
religious fear by the inventions of false religious 
leaders. These writings were afterwards col¬ 
lected in book form, and have since been known 
as the Holy Bible. 

The god described in the Bible is the God of 
the Christian world. Let us see if he is real. 
According to the Bible, God created the human 
race and pronounced them good. He also created 
a devil—a powerful enemy—knowing that this 
devil would corrupt his helpless children. The 
very first day God allowed his wicked rival to be 
victorious, to hurl humanity from the height of 
perfect innocence to the depth of vilest sin. God 

8 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


knew all this would happen; in fact, he left the 
stage to allow the tragedy to go on. Would a 
real God create a rival and allow the fiend to 
pollute the morals of his perfect world! The 
story sounds like fiction at the start. 

Centuries rolled away, and mankind did not 
improve. Then God resolved to drown the human 
race, excepting eight persons, in a universal 
flood. Why did God drown his children? Why 
did he cover the world with the swollen corpses 
of his sons and daughters? Was it because they 
were wicked? Why did he not reform them? 
Better still, why did he not destroy the devil and 
thereby keep his children pure? Think of the 
character of a God who will allow his own 
devil to drive him to such desperation that his 
only hope of peace lies in the drowning of a 
world! Can such a god be real? 

The children of Israel were slaves in Egypt. 
Pharaoh was the tyrant who oppressed them. 
God made up his mind to liberate them and to 
punish, not only Pharaoh, but the innocent 
Egyptians as well. And this is how he proceeded. 
He turned all the water of Egypt into blood; he 
filled their houses, their chambers and their beds 
with loathsome frogs; he covered their* bodies 
with lice; he tortured them with flies; he killed 
their cattle with a plague of murrain; he des¬ 
troyed their crops with fire and hail; he filled 

9 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


their country with locusts to eat the remnant of 
their wasted food; he plunged them into thick 
darkness for three days, and yet he was not 
satisfied. Again he hardened Pharaoh’s heart. 
What for? So that he might yet further wreak 
his vengeance on a people who had done no 
wrong. And what did he do next? He murdered 
all the firstborn in the land of Egypt—“from the 
firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto 
the firstborn of the captive that was in the 
dungeon.” Throughout the whole nation there 
was not a home “where there was not one dead.” 

Would a good God punish the innocent for a 
crime of the guilty? Would he overwhelm a 
nation with frightful plagues and assassinate the 
firstborn child in every home, to avenge himself 
on a petty tyrant? If the devil had been dealing 
with the Egyptians, could his conduct have been 
more infamous than was that of Jehovah? Can 
such a god be real? 

But the Jews themselves fared worse at the 
hands of their god than did their Egyptian 
masters. They were promised a land flowing 
with milk and honey. For this land, they were 
induced to leave their Egyptian homes. Soon, 
however, they had reason to regret having taken 
Jehovah at his word. He was to them a worse 
tyrant than Pharaoh. He plagued and tortured 
and slew them by thousands. After having 

10 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


strewn the wilderness with the bleaching bones 
of multitudes, he told those that remained that 
they would never see the promised land, that 
only their children would, that their carcasses 
would fall in the wilderness and that they would 
“know his breach of promise/’ Of all the Jews 
who started out from Egypt, only two, Caleb and 
Joshua, reached the land of Canaan. Jehovah 
promised his people freedom and a fertile soil. 
He led them to exile and death upon a weary 
waste. Can such a god be real? 

The god of the Old Testament was difficult 
to please. He was continually calling for sac¬ 
rifices. To satisfy his craving, a Niagara of blood 
poured from the veins of butchered beasts. His 
priests were ever cutting the throats of lambs 
and bulls. Of all the gods, Jehovah was prob¬ 
ably the most fussy. Everything had to be done 
in his own particular way. In the twenty-ninth 
chapter of Exodus, he instructs the Jewish priests 
in the following manner: “Then shalt thou kill 
the ram, and take of his blood, and put it upon 
the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the 
tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the 
thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe 
of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon 
the altar round about/’ It is hard to say how 
many people Jehovah would have killed had they 

happened to put the blood on the left ear or on 

11 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 

the wrong toe. So far as we know, the god of 
the Jews never smiled, and he probably held the 
fragrance of flowers in supreme contempt; but 
when he saw his priests well decorated with the 
blood of beasts, and the air thick with his favor¬ 
ite perfume,—the smoke of burning flesh—the 
wrinkles of his wrath may have relaxed a little. 

In Ezekiel, Jehovah tells his people: “And if 
the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken 
a thing, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet; ’ ’ 
in Deuteronomy, he says to them: “The Lord 
thy God is a consuming fire;” in Jeremiah, he 
assures them: “Ye have kindled a fire in mine 
anger which shall burn forever;” in Isaiah, he 
proclaims: “And I will feed them that oppress 
thee with their own flesh; and they shall be 
drunken with their own blood as with sweet 
wine;” and in I Samuel, he utters this frightful 
command: “Now go and smite Amalek, and ut¬ 
terly destroy all that they have, and spare them 
not; but slay both man and woman, infant and 
suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” So, the 
god of the Bible describes himself as being un¬ 
truthful, a consuming fire, forever angry, the 
high priest of cannibalism, and the commander- 
in-chief over wholesale murder! Can such a god 
be real? 

Why should humanity believe that a book con¬ 
taining such descriptions of deity is inspired and 

12 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


divine? Why should we go to barbarians for 
our ideals of divinity? Why should we worship 
a cannibal god? Why should we build temples in 
honor of a god who took extreme delight in wit¬ 
nessing the long drawn out tortures and the 
death of helpless women and innocent babes? 
If Jehovah were to come to earth, he would be 
the most undesirable citizen in the world. Why, 
he is said to have killed, on one occasion, fifty 
thousand and seventy persons merely because 
they had looked into a wooden box. Can such 
a god be real? 

According to Christianity, Jehovah is the 
only god; and yet we are assured that Jehovah 
had a son, who is also a god. This son was born 
among the peasants of Judea, about two 
thousand years ago. His mother was the wife 
of a Jewish mechanic. The child grew to man¬ 
hood as other children grew. His habits were 
like those of other men. He ate and slept, wore 
clothes and worked, preached a while and died. 
{Those who knew him thought he was a man; but 
if the church is right, he was really an infinite 
God. 

At this point, we are confronted with mystery 
and miracle. While it is held that Jehovah was 
the father of Christ, it is also claimed that Christ 
was the son of the Holy Ghost. Of course, it is 

argued that the god of the Jews and the Holy 

13 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


Ghost were one and the same person; but of this 
there is not the slightest evidence, and the case 
is not strengthened at all by the fact that the 
whole Jewish religion is a passionate denial that 
Jehovah ever had a son. 

Another peculiar thing about the parentage 
of Christ, the God of Christianity, is the claim 
that he was born of a virgin. Of course, every¬ 
body knows that virgins do not give birth to 
children, and most of us believe that when women 
do become mothers, their children are very 
seldom gods. Be that as it may, the mother of 
Christ, whatever may be said of her being a 
virgin, was, in fact, a married woman. The first 
page of the New Testament assures us that 
Joseph was her husband, and that she, Mary, was 
Joseph’s wife. The belief that Joseph was the 
father of Christ is confirmed by Mary herself. 
Finding her child in the temple one day, she 
said to him: “Thy father and I have sought thee, 
sorrowing.” And yet, in spite of the fact that 
Joseph and Mary were husband and wife long 
before Christ was born, in spite of the fact that 
Mary called Joseph the father of her child, in 
spite of the fact that every Jew ever did, and 
ever will, deny that Jehovah became the father 
of another god, the churches teach that Christ 
was God and the son of God. Can such a god be 
real? 


14 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


According to Christianity, Jehovah is God, 
Christ is God and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet 
it is said that there are not three Gods, but only 
one God. This is the doctrine of the Trinity. 
This doctrine was developed by the Roman Cath¬ 
olic Church, and is to-day the basis of the faith 
of the Christian world. The Athanasian Creed, 
in part, reads as follows: “The Godhead of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost 
is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. 
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such 
is the Holy Ghost. The Father is uncreated, the 
Son is uncreated and the Holy Ghost uncreated. 
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incompre¬ 
hensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. 
The Father eternal, the Son eternal and the Holy 
Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three 
Eeternals, but one Eternal. As also they are 
not three uncreated, nor three incomprehen- 
sibles; but one uncreated, and one incomprehen¬ 
sible. In like manner, the Father is almighty, 
the Son almighty, and the Holy Ghost almighty. 
And yet they are not three Almighties, but one 
Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, 
and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not 
three Gods, but one God. So likewise, the 
Father is Lord, the Son is Lord and the Holy 
Ghost is Lord. And yet they are not three Lords, 

but one Lord. For as we are compelled by the 

15 



IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


Christian truth to acknowledge every person by 
himself to be God and Lord, so we are forbidden 
by the Catholic religion to say there are three 
Gods or three Lords.” 

Such, in part, is the Catholic definition of God. 
Upon that foundation has been reared the entire 
structure of orthodox Christianity, Protestant as 
well as Catholic. If that definition fails, Christi¬ 
anity falls. And can such Trinitarian jargon 
satisfy, for one moment, the mind of a thinking 
man? Can we conceive of anything more incom¬ 
prehensible than the statement that three Eter¬ 
nals are only one Eternal, that three Almighties 
are but one Almighty, and that three Gods are, 
in fact, exactly one God? Is there anything in 
language more thoroughly irrational, more utter¬ 
ly idiotic? If a man is supposed to believe such 
an absurdity, why is he endowed with reason? 
Or is it true that belief in God is possible only 
after we have thrown away our reason? Can 
such a god be real? 

But what is God? Does the word describe any 
particular thing? Is God an actual being? 
Christians say that God is a spirit. Well, what 
is that? Is it something that can be seen and 
felt and heard? Does it have weight? Does it 
occupy space? If the word “spirit” corresponds 
to anything that is know, what is that thing? 

Again I ask, 4 'What is God?” The Episcopa¬ 
lian Creed answers as follows: 4 ‘There is but one 

16 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 

living and true God, everlasting, without body, 
parts or passions. ” Take note of the words, 
“without body, parts , or passions.” A more 
striking definition of nothing could not be im¬ 
agined! In endeavoring to define God, Protes¬ 
tantism succeeds only in denying his existence! 
No body, no parts, no passions—that is to say, 
no head, no brains, no knowledge, no love, no 
hate, no anything—and yet he is 6 ‘ everlasting. ’ ’ 
Everlasting what? Why, everlasting Nothing¬ 
ness ! 

The fact is that the human mind cannot con¬ 
ceive of a spiritual existence. We cannot grasp 
the thought of life apart from matter. Whatever 
lives, must have material form. All nature 
denies that there can be spirit where there is no 
substance. If reason and experience count for 
anything, we are forced to the conclusion that 
those who say that God has neither “body, parts 
nor passions,’’ simply give expression to what 
they do not know. God is either something or 
nothing. If he is something, he must have a 
body—he must be material. If God thinks, he 
must have a brain. If he feels, he must have 
nerves. There is, there can be, no thought apart 
from brain; and there can be no sensation, no 
feeling, where there are no nerves. Again, a 
brain and a nervous system cannot be conceived 
of apart from a stomach. Whatever lives must 

eat. No exception to this rule can be imagined. 

17 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


We can reason only from what we know. But 
how can a being having a body and a brain, a 
nervous system and digestive organs, be con¬ 
ceived of as a God? How can a being that bears 
the form of man, or of any other creature, be 
infinite in power and in knowledge? 

We are told that God thinks, makes plans, and 
carries out intentions, and that he is jealous, 
loving and kind. If this is true, he must be like 
a human being—he must have personality. But 
if God is personal, how can he be infinite? An 
infinite personality is a contradiction in terms. 
Personality cannot contain infinity any more than 
a cent can contain a million dollars. The per¬ 
sonal and the infinite are opposite extremes. In 
saying that God is a personal being, man simply 
projects himself into the darkness of nature. 
Unable to conceive of any creature of nobler 
outline than his own, he thinks of God as having 
a human form. Thus, man makes God in his own 
image. Civilized man magnifies the attributes of 
the god of primitive man, and then tries to think 
of Deity as both infinite and personal. 

The science of astronomy proves the idea of 
a personal god to be utterly childish. Let us 
glance for a moment at the structure of the 
universe. The earth on which we live has a 
diameter of about 8,000 miles. Our sun is a 
molten mass of fire with a diameter of 866,200 
miles, and his circumference is more than two 

18 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


and a half million miles. The magnitude of the 
sun is 1,305,000 times the size of our little globe. 
Several of the planets of the Solar system are 
vastly larger than the one on which we live. 
Uranus has 59 times the volume of the earth, 
Neptune 103 times, Saturn 848 times; and it 
would take 1,389 worlds like ours to make a globe 
of the size of Jupiter. The sun is 93,000,000 
miles from us. Neptune, whose path marks the 
boundary line of the solar system, is separated 
from the sun by 2,792,000,000 miles. The mighty 
orbit of this planet is 5,584,000,000 miles wide. 
An express train speeding at the rate of a mile 
a minute, and traveling night and day, would 
require 176 years to go from the earth to the sun. 
In making the long journey from the sun to the 
planet Neptune, the same train, dashing at the 
same speed, would continue in its flight 5,280 
years. 

And yet, our whole solar system is but a 
speck of foam in the midst of a shoreless ocean. 
An infinite universe lies beyond our little group 
of worlds. It would take seven hundred times as 
many planets as our solar system contains, to 
equal the weight of the sun. But it would take 
1,500,000 suns like ours to reach the grand di¬ 
mensions of the star Arcturus. Our sun glorifies 
the day from a distance of 93,000,000 miles, but 
Arcturus revels in brilliant splendor 11,500,000 
times farther away. Sirius, the Dog Star, brand- 



IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


ishes his swords of light fifty-eight thousand 
billions of miles from our little grain of sand; 
while Polaris, the wondrous Star of the North, 
pours his silver flood upon us through the awful 
distance of two hundred and ten thousand 
billions of miles. Our flying train would reach 
the sun in 176 years; but how long would it take 
to reach this flaming monarch of the sky 
2,378,000 times farther away? 

On a clear night, we behold the field of heaven 
thickly sown with twinkling stars. How many 
of us reflect that our nearest neighbor in the 
starry realms, Alpha Centauri, is distant from us 
twenty millions of millions of miles? It takes a 
ray of light, traveling at the velocity of 186,000 
miles a second, more than three years and a half 
to reach us from that star. The stars we see are 
glowing suns. Twenty millions of them are 
scattered along the path of the Milky Way. 
Separated by inconceivable distances, alone, in 
groups, and in galaxies, they fill every region of 
the infinite expanse with the matchless glory of 
their splendor. In the presence of such a uni¬ 
verse, a universe where countless millions of 
suns and worlds wheel in orbits great and small 
with inconceivable velocity—a universe so vast 
that the flying arrows of light spend millions of 
years in crossing but a part of its domain—in 
the awful presence of such infinitude, our little 
baby earth seems but a speck of dust. 

20 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


How could a personal God be master of such 
a universe ? How could he be everywhere in it 
at the same time? Give God a stature a million 
miles in height; give him a brain as large as the 
volume of all the oceans, and yet, in the presence 
of the countless billions of complications, move¬ 
ments and destinies of our infinite universe, he 
would be as helpless as a babe lost amid the crags 
of a mountain. Can such a god be real? 

“But,” says the Christian, “God must con¬ 
trol the universe, for he created it.” 

Let us see. If the universe was created, an 
eternity must have passed away before the work 
of creation began. During that eternity, there 
could have been nothing in existence—not a ray 
of light, not a grain of sand—nothing except God. 
Think of an infinite God spending eternity in an 
empty universe, enveloped in darkness, like an 
eternal convict in the solitary confinement of a 
dungeon! By and by God made up his mind to 
create the suns and worlds. Where did he get 
his material? Did he create it out of nothing? 
How could nothing be transformed into the 
wondrous stars? Can we conceive of nothing 
becoming something? 

On the other hand, if matter previously ex¬ 
isted, the universe was already here, and there 
was no creation. It must be assumed that either 
God or the universe never had beginning. Now, 

if God could exist from eternity, why could not 

21 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


the universe? What reason can there be for the 
belief that God could exist from eternity but that 
that universe could not? If the universe had to 
come from somewhere, where did God come 
from? If material enough to make a God ex¬ 
isted without beginning, why not enough to make 
a universe? The fact is that to put a God back 
of the universe only creates a mystery. God and 
creation are both inconceivable. To argue that 
there was a time when the universe did not exist, 
to say that it was brought into existence out of 
nothing, and to invent an inconceivable cre¬ 
ator to account for it, is utterly unscientific. The 
universe is here. It is composed of matter and 
force. Science has demonstrated that matter and 
force cannot be separated, and cannot be destroy¬ 
ed. Logic forces us to conclude that that which 
cannot be destroyed could not have been created. 
Thus the evidence of science proves that the 
universe is eternal, and that matter and force, 
ever in motion, building, changing and trans¬ 
forming, produce all the forms and wonders we 
behold. 

Although millions have abandoned the belief 
that the universe was designed, that belief is 
still held by Christians. They compare the 
universe to a watch, and they say that as the 
watch needs a watchmaker, so the universe could 
not exist without a designer. A moment’s con¬ 
sideration reveals the folly of this argument. 

22 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


The universe is not like a watch, and there is not 
the slightest evidence that it was designed. 
Besides, if the universe needed a God to design 
it, how does it happen that God could exist with¬ 
out a designer to design him? Could anything 
he more illogical than the assertion that an infin¬ 
ite designer could exist without design, but that 
the universe could not? 

In Christian reasoning, the design argument 
runs: The watch is a wonderful thing; therefore, 
it must have been designed: the watchmaker is 
more wonderful; therefore, he must have been 
designed: the universe is more wonderful still; 
therefore, it, to, must have had a designer. But 
God, the most wonderful thing of all, exists 
without design! When the design argument 
reaches God, it destroys itself. To give this 
argument logical value would require an endless 
succession of designing Gods, each one designed 
by a previous designer. Such an argument 
proves too much; consequently, it proves nothing. 

How can a thinking man look out upon the 
world and come to the conclusion that back of 
all things there is a great designer, who is infin¬ 
itely wise and good? It will not do to say that 
some things are designed and that other things 
are not. If nature is controlled by an infinite 
God, that God must be responsible for everything 
that happens. Every form and fact and change 

in nature’s vast domain of action must be the 

23 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


work of his designing hand. Did a good God 
design a world where life feeds on life—a world 
in which ferocious beasts eat the flesh and drink 
the blood of other creatures? Eternal agony sits 
in every forest where the cries of half devoured 
victims never die away. Every sea is filled with 
fanged and frightful monsters in eager search of 
something to consume. Millions of human beings 
have been devoured by carnivorous beasts. 

Not far from a jungle in the province of 
Bengal, a mother sits in a hammock, reading. 
Her little child is playing at her side. The awful 
nearness of a tiger is unknown. The monster’s 
eye surveys the scene, and he steals with noise¬ 
less tread toward the unhappy pair. The child 
greets the tiger with a smile. A little scream is 
heard. The mother turns and, horror struck, sees 
her child hurried away to the jungle in the fangs 
of the devourer. Armed men make search. The 
tiger is found and killed. In his stomach is 
found the flesh of the frantic mother’s babe. Is 
the tiger the work of God’s design? Would a' 
good God destroy a child to satisfy the appetite 
of a tiger? 

Did an infinite God fill the world with every 
kind of foul disease, in order that his children 
might be tortured and deformed? Are leprosy, 
cancer and consumption a part of God’s design? 
The cancer is as wonderful as any fact in nature. 

It is as perfect in its way as is the human brain. 

24 



IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


Who can see God’s works of love in the earth¬ 
quake, the pestilence and the famine? Who shall 
mark designing wisdom in the volcanoes that 
overwhelm the innocent, the floods that drown 
them, and the cyclones that strew the plain with 
their mangled corpses? 

If an infinite God is master of the world, he 
is responsible for all the cruelty of the past— 
for all the suffering that has been endured. 
When mothers sacrificed their babes to loathe- 
some serpents, they but fulfilled his wise design. 
When millions were enslaved, when earth ran red 
with cruel wars, when the virtuous starved in 
dungeons, when the brave and the loving were 
consumed in the flames of persecution, when 
tyranny triumphed over liberty destroyed, his 
purpose was accomplished in the world. 

If nature is the work of God’s design, he is 
responsible for all the ignorance and, supersti¬ 
tion that have led mankind astray, for the spread 
of false religions that have filled the world with 
hate, for the overthrow of civilization, for the 
tortures of the Inquisition, for the massacre of 
St. Bartholemew, and for the rule and sway of 
countless forms of wrong. 

For more than three years, the most terrible 
war known to man has been sapping the vitality 
of civilization, filling the earth with millions of 
martyrs’ graves, and spreading hate and grief 

throughout the world. If a God designed the 

25 



IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


facts and forces of existence, he is the author of 
the accumulated horrors this war has brought 
upon mankind. 

There can be no escape from reason. We must 
face the facts. It is design or no design. Make 
it design and God must be accountable. It is 
not nature and God; it is nature or God. If God 
designed the human body, he also designed the 
parasites that feed upon its organs and destroy 
it. If he designed the eye for seeing, he designed 
the cataract to take the sight away. A design 
that defeats design, hardly shows the wisdom of 
a God. 

Admit design in nature and it must be held 
that everything was intended for its particular 
purpose. The poison in the serpent’s fangs was 
made to poison his prey; the microbe was made 
to destroy the man; and every disaster in the 
world was intended to take its toll of human 
lives. The burning of a ship at sea, the wrecking 
of a train on land, the explosion of a mine— 
everything that wounds and kills, falls under 
God’s design. The persecutor and the martyr 
are designed—the one to prepare the fagots, the 
other to die in the flames! Booth and Lincoln 
are designed—the one to be the assassin, the 
other to be his victim! When God designed a 
thing, he must have known just what that thing 
would be, and he must have intended that it 

should be just what it is. A world in which there 

26 



IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


is ugliness as well as beauty, vice as well as 
virtue, cruelty as well as kindness—a world in 
which the strong consume the weak, a world 
where history is stained on every page with the 
blood of martyred millions, is surely not the 
perfect handiwork of an infinitely wise designer. 

Religion sees this great difficulty, and so, to 
account for the evil of the world it invents a 
devil. This devil is supposed to be ever warring 
with God and turning his works into ruin. God 
intends a thing to be good; the devil makes it 
bad. God creates souls for heaven; the devil 
lures them into hell. 

During the Christian ages, it was believed that 
the world was a battle field where God and the 
devil fought to gain control. Hosts of angels 
served in the ’ army of God; while Satan’s bat¬ 
talions were recruited from the imps of hell. 
These gods and devils interfered with all the 
phenomena of nature. The weather and the 
crops, health and disease, were in their hands. 
They were interested in all human concerns. 
The poor people, trembling with fear, resorted 
to every means that superstition could suggest 
to win the favor of the gods and to drive the 
devils away. They worshipped relics and wore 
charms; they counted beads and kissed crosses; 
they sprinkled holy water and rang bells; they 
made pilgrimages and processions—they did all 

they could think of doing to escape the grim 

27 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 

clutches of Satan’s fiends. The world was filled 
with terror. Christendom was a madhouse. 
Christianity was insanity. It was believed by 
popes and priests, by statesmen and jurists, that 
human beings sold themselves, body and soul, to 
the Devil. Men and women were put to death 
for having entered into compacts with Satan to 
produce storms, to blight crops, to kill cattle, to 
prevent women from bearing children, to cause 
sickness, and to bring about the death of their 
neighbors. It was universally held that women, 
especially, yielded themselves to Satan’s power. 
Thousands of women were accused of having 
ridden through the air on a broomstick or a goat, 
to attend a Witch Sabbath, of having borne 
children to Satan, of having changed themselves 
into wolves, and of having done hundreds of other 
impossible things. 

For the victims of these awful accusations, 
there was no mercy in the Christian world. The 
whole church, Protestant as well as Catholic, was 
fired with a holy zeal to destroy the kingdom of 
the Devil. Multitudes of men and women, who 
were guilty of no wrong, were broken on the 
wheel, stretched apart on racks of torture, 
whipped to death, hanged and burned alive, as 
victims of the devil superstition. Myriads of 
children were put to death in the same frightful 
ways, charged with the same impossible crimes. 

No imagination can even faintly conceive of 

28 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


the horrible history of Christianity! No histor¬ 
ian can compute the number of its victims. For 
many centuries, that fiendish religion filled the 
world with instruments of torture and chambers 
of death. And yet the Church was honest. She 
believed that God needed her support in his war 
against the Devil. She regarded it as a sacred 
duty to destroy those who joined the ranks of 
Satan. 

The church of to-day is but the withered 
skeleton of what the church has been. She has 
largely passed out of the life of the world. The 
major portion of her power has been destroyed. 
The meaning has faded from her dogmas. On 
every side she sees to-day the rising tide of un¬ 
belief. All the little devils have disappeared and 
the prince of fiends lingers only in the minds of 
the benighted and the stupid. He is still prom¬ 
inent at revivals; but from the world of culture 
he has been banished forever. 

Civilization grows as religion dies. Once the 
world bowed and believed; now it stands erect 
and reasons. All questions relating to God and 
the Devil are now weighed in the balance of the 
brain. Every man who thinks at all knows now 
that the evil of the world cannot be explained by 
the agency of a devil. There can be only one 
infinite power in the universe. If that power is 
God and if there is a devil, the devil must be 

under God’s control. He is what God made him 

29 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


and he can act only as God allows. God could 
kill the devil, but he keeps him for a purpose; 
therefore, God is responsible for all the devil 
does. 

Having abandoned the idea of a devil and 
finding it impossible to believe that the ugliness 
and cruelty of nature are the work of a good 
God, some thinkers have supposed that God is 
limited in power, and that he is doing the best 
he can. This appears to be the belief of Mr. H. 
G. Wells. In 4 ‘God The Invisible King,” the em¬ 
inent novelist insists that God is not material but 
spiritual, yet a person, though without sex. He is 
a finite being neither all wise, nor all powerful, nor 
omnipresent. He did not create nor does he con¬ 
trol the universe. He had a beginning and has 
grown with the growth of mankind. Confined 
within time, dwelling neither in matter nor space 
but in the life of humanity, his first purpose is 
to acquire knowledge to use his growing power. 
He is not providence. He operates solely through 
human intelligence. He may be known as a man 
knows a friend and yet of his existence there is no 
proof but the conviction that he is! Assuredly, 
such a contention is the child of despair. To deny 
creation, to hold that the universe is not control¬ 
led, is to deprive God of any function in nature. 
To say that God had a beginning, that he has 
grown with time, is to bandy empty phrases— 
words that correspond to no reality. Any argu- 

30 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


ment that denies the supremacy of God as creator 
and controller denies also his existence. The fact 
is that nowhere in nature can man behold the foot¬ 
prints of Diety. So far as we can observe, the 
movements of the universe are never interfered 
with by any outside power. Everything we know 
mirrors forth the fact that nature is a unity, 
eternally existing of and by herself, embracing 
within her mighty sway all causes and all effects, 
ever producing new forms from old materials, 
unfolding an endless procession of life and death, 
growth and decay, and holding all forever in the 
infinite control of eternal and unchanging natural 
law. 

The work of evolution is everlasting. In every 
region of the heavens there are condensing 
nebulae—worlds in the process of formation. 
Millions of ages ago, one of these vast clouds of 
primal world stuff spread across our solar sky. 
The mighty cloud cooled, and condensed, and 
broke up into parts, and after illimitable time 
the sun and planets were formed. Innumerable 
ages rolled away—for nature knows no hurry— 
the molten earth cooled and crusted over; and 
by and by, in the warm primeval ocean, some 
elements combined and generated life. The first 
life was extremely simple—each individual 
creature consisted of a single cell. In the course 
of evolution, the single cell grew and divided, and 
subdivided, until it became two layers of cells— 



IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


the gastrula. Growth and change continued, and 
in time life reached a worm-like stage. This 
creature had no head, and only a pulsating tube 
for a heart. Then came the fish and later on 
the reptile, then the quadruped in many forms. 
Life spread out in all directions, and earth was 
filled with strange and fearful beasts. From a 
high branch of the tree of life, ape-like creatures 
were developed, and from these in time arose a 
race of fierce and brute-like men. By means of 
the survival of the fittest, nature continued her 
great refining process. Slowly, imperceptibly, 
unconsciously, the low forehead of primitive man 
was raised; his small brain was enlarged; his 
projecting jaw drawn in; the brute expression of 
his countenance softened into the human smile. 

It took nature millions of ages to make a 
man. She filled the world with everything that 
crawled and flew and climbed countless ages 
before our ancestors were born. And when at 
last man did appear upon the scene of nature, he 
was for hundreds of thousands of years the prey 
of fierce and hungry beasts. Our poor ancestors 
were shown no favors. No God ever taught man¬ 
kind a single fact. Painful experience alone 
has been the teacher of our race. As our fathers 
learned how to protect themselves, their arts and 
institutions gradually improved. Civilization 
was born of self defence. 

The forward march of the race has been im- 

32 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


peded in countless ways by the slavish spirit of 
religion. As in his forest home man was the vic¬ 
tim of the devouring beast, so for untold ages 
since he has been the prey of the destroying 
priest. By ignorance and superstition, by false¬ 
hood and torture, the priest has made himself the 
greatest enemy of mankind. By bribing the be¬ 
liever with heaven and by threatening the doubter 
with hell, he poisoned the human mind with indol¬ 
ence and fear, and paralyzed for centuries the 
wholesome action of the brain. 

During the frightful ages when the church con¬ 
trolled the world, it was a crime to reason, a crime 
to investigate, a crime to express any thought that 
differed from the Christian creed. Every ques¬ 
tion about nature was answered by an appeal to 
some ghostly personality. Everything was be¬ 
lieved to have been created perfect a few thous¬ 
and years ago. It was believed that the heavens 
were but a few miles above the earth. This was 
the only world in existence; the sun traveled 
round it every day; and the stars were little orna¬ 
ments set out to beautify the sky. Nobody enter¬ 
tained the faintest conception of natural law, and 
the all-embracing fact of evolution w'as entirely 
unknown. 

Since those days, science has completely revo¬ 
lutionized the thinking of intelligent mankind. 
The telescope has made the universe a limitless 
expanse. The stars have become glowing suns. 

33 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


Our little earth is no longer the favored centre of 
the cosmic scheme, but a grain of sand on the 
shore of an infinite ocean. 

Turning their attention to the forms of life 
that everywhere surround us, the men of science 
have demonstrated that all the living creatures of 
the earth have been evolved from a single life 
stem; that man is but an animal of nobler form 
and finer brain; and that the work of evolution is 
going on in the present as it went on in the past. 

Science has established, too, the greatest fact 
the mind of man can know—the fact that all na¬ 
ture from sand to stars, from microbes to men, is 
controlled by universal and everlasting law. No¬ 
where in the universe is there the slightest room 
for chance. Cause and effect are everywhere su¬ 
preme. No miracle can happen. No prayer can 
be answered. The order of nature is inviolable, 
and neither God nor Devil can interfere. 

In the presence of this grand revelation of 
science, all bibles and religions, all heavens and 
hells, all devils and gods, dwindle into puerile su¬ 
perstitions. They but express the ignorance of 
men who lived in days when nature was unknown. 
Science has investigated a thousand departments 
of nature and from every field her patient stu¬ 
dents have returned with truths that completely 
destroy the miraculous and the supernatural. 

We know now that nature has no religious 

preference and knows no respect of persons; that 

34 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


earthquakes and volcanoes will consume human 
beings in spite of prayers and preaching; that the 
lightning strikes the virtuous as often as the vic¬ 
ious ; that the drought and the flood never pay the 
slightest heed to piety and praise; that health and 
disease do not depend at all upon devotion to or 
disbelief in God; that no man can be good enough 
or bad enough to change in any way the course of 
nature’s action. We know that nature does noth¬ 
ing out of regafd for human beings; that she has 
no ear to hear our suplications, no hand to supply 
our wants. Unconscious of what we think, know¬ 
ing nothing of our wants and ways, she bestows 
no blessings and seeks for no revenge. To her the 
sublime and the ridiculous are the same — she 
cares as much for a mosquito as for a man. To¬ 
ward everying that lives she sustains an attitude 
of infinite indifference. 

Nature is, in fact, the very opposite of what 
religion has taught, and yet a true knowledge of 
her ways comes to us laden with the greatest hope 
and promise for the world. All the progress that 
mankind has made in the past has been due to the 
labor of those who have worked in accordance 
with nature’s laws. The felling of forests, the 
cultivation of fields, the building of cities, the con¬ 
struction of ships, the invention of machinery, the 
founding of schools — all the achievements that 
have helped to refine and civilize the world, have 
proceeded in accordance with natural law. 

85 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


Therefore, when men and women shall have 
learned that the universe in its entirety is gov¬ 
erned by law, that a god is inconceivable, and that 
prayers cannot be answered, they will cease to 
seek aid from the supernatural. They will then 
rise from their knees and strive by every human 
means to improve the conditions of the world. 
They will learn how to conquer disease and how 
to lengthen life. They will turn all churches into 
schools where nature will be interpreted by hon¬ 
est men. They will endeavor to make men moral 
by developing the rational powers of the brain. 
They will re-arrange the industry of the world on 
principles of justice and pay to labor its just re¬ 
ward. They will look with pity on those who 
tread the weary paths of crime and seek by sanity 
and kindness to win them back to honorable ways. 
They will paralyze forever the murderous arm of 
war. They will do all that can be done to beauti¬ 
fy the world and to make its people happy, gener¬ 
ous and free. 

This world is our real home; all mankind are 
our brothers and our sisters, and the life we now 
enjoy is our heaven and our hell. We now know 
that all religions are human institutions; that all 
ideas of God are mere guesses of men; that no 
divine revelation has ever come to earth and that 
no supernatural religion can possibly be true. 

From the high vantage ground of twentieth 
century civilization, we can survey the religious 

36 


IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


history of our race and mark the birth and death 
of many gods. We see the naked savage trying to 
explain nature’s forces by regarding them as per¬ 
sonalities. We see him worshipping as gods even 
rivers, trees and animals. We see rude tribes like 
the Jews making their gods cruel, warlike and re¬ 
vengeful. We see nobler nations of higher ideals, 
picturing their gods as poetic, intellectual and 
kind. And we behold that in every country, man ’s 
highest conception of God assumes the form of a 
deified man. We behold the great pagan world— 
India, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Greece and 
Rome— richly supplied with countless gods and 
goddesses, whose work of supervision and control 
extends over all the forces and functions of na¬ 
ture. We observe that the greatest gods are al¬ 
ways those of the powerful and leading nations. 

The scene keeps changing. One by one the na¬ 
tions disappear; their religions pass away; their 
gods die and are buried. New nations, new relig¬ 
ions, and new gods arise and claim the allegiance 
of mankind. With the roll of the centuries, the 
number of gods grows less and less, until at last 
one supreme divinity is thought to rule the world. 
In the service of this god, mankind give up, for 
many centuries, every interest but religion. The 
world becomes filled with priests and poverty, 
with superstition and persecution, with war and 
woe. Common sense is banished from the minds 

37 



IS THERE A REAL GOD? 


of men and the dark ages of Christianity enshroud 
mankind in religious gloom. 

At last the surging mind of man, in the name 
of intellectual freedom, shatters the power of the 
church. Reason returns, and men begin to inves¬ 
tigate and learn. In the grand awakening, science 
is born. The universe is explored by patient 
searchers after truth, and everywhere is found 
the reign of natural law. The universe is found 
to be mechanical. Nowhere does it reflect the 
ideals and character of a god; nowhere can any 
trace of God be discovered. Thoughtful men and 
women come to regard the totality of nature as 
the one eternal being—as our mother, our teacher, 
and our tomb. The last god fades from the minds 
of millions and takes his place with the countless 
gods that are dead. Supernatural religion disap¬ 
pears, leaving a natural world, filled with enlight¬ 
ened men and women, to work for the improve¬ 
ment of mankind. 


38 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY 

LIVE? 


Scientific inquiry into the origins of Christian¬ 
ity begins to-day with the question: “Did Jesus 
Christ really live?” Was there a man named 
Jesus, who was called the Christ, living in Pales¬ 
tine nineteen centuries ago, of whose life and 
teachings we have a correct account in the New 
Testament? The orthodox idea that Christ was 
the son of God—God himself in human form—that 
he was the creator of the countless millions of 
glowing suns and wheeling worlds that strew the 
infinite expanse of the universe; that the forces 
of nature were the servants of his will and 
changed their courses at his command—such an 
idea has been abandoned by every independent 
thinker in the world—by every thinker who re¬ 
lies on reason and experience rather than mere 
faith—by every man of science who places the in¬ 
tegrity of nature above the challenge of ancient 
religious tales. 

Not only has the divinity of Christ been given 
up, but his existence as a man is being more and 
more seriously questioned. Some of the ablest 
scholars of the world deny that he ever lived at 

39 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


all. A commanding literature dealing with the in¬ 
quiry, intense in its seriousness and profound and 
thorough in its research, is growing up in all coun¬ 
tries, and spreading the conviction that Christ is 
a myth. The question is one of tremendous im¬ 
portance. For the Freethinker, as well as for the 
Christian, it is of the weightiest significance. The 
Christian religion has been and is a mighty fact 
in the world. For good or for ill, it has absorbed 
for many centuries the best energies of mankind. 
It has stayed the march of civilization, and made 
martyrs of some of the noblest men and women of 
the race: and it is to-day the greatest enemy of 
knowledge, of freedom, of social and industrial 
improvement, and of the genuine brotherhood of 
mankind. The progressive forces of the world 
are at war with this Asiatic superstition, and this 
war will continue until the triumph of truth and 
freedom is complete. The question, “Did Jesus 
Christ Really Live ? ’’ goes to the very root of the 
conflict between reason and faith; and upon its de¬ 
termination depends, to some degree, the decision 
as to whether religion or humanity shall rule the 
world. 

Whether Christ did, or did not live, has noth¬ 
ing at all to do with what the churches teach, or 
with what we believe. It is wholly a matter of 
evidence. It is a question of science. The ques¬ 
tion is—what does history say? And that ques¬ 
tion must be settled in the court of historical criti- 

40 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


cism. If the thinking world is to hold to the posi¬ 
tion that Christ was a real character, there must 
be sufficient evidence to warrant that belief. If 
no evidence for his existence can be found; if his¬ 
tory returns the verdict that his name is not in¬ 
scribed upon her scroll, if it be found that his 
story was created by art and ingenuity, like the 
stories of fictitious heroes, he will have to take 
his place with the host of other demigods whose 
fancied lives and deeds make up the mythology of 
the world. 

What, then, is the evidence that Jesus Christ 
lived in this world as a man? The authorities re¬ 
lied upon to prove the reality of Christ are the 
four Gospels of the New Testament—Matthew, 
Mark, Luke and John. These Gospels, and these 
alone, tell the story of his life. Now we know 
absolutely nothing of Matthew, Mark, Luke and 
John, apart from what is said of them in the 
Gospels. Moreover, the Gospels themselves do 
not claim to have been written by these men. 
They are not called “The Gospel of Matthew,’’ 
or “The Gospel of Mark,” but “The Gospel Ac¬ 
cording to Matthew,” “The Gospel According to 
Mark,” “The Gospel According to Luke,” and 
“The Gospel According to John.” No human 
being knows who wrote a single line in one of 
these Gospels. No human being knows when they 
were written, or where. Biblical scholarship has 

established the fact that the Gospel of Mark is 

41 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


the oldest of the four. The chief reasons for 
this conclusion are that this Gospel is shorter, 
simpler, and more natural, than any of the other 
three. It is shown that the Gospels of Matthew 
and Luke were enlarged from the Gospel of Mark. 
The Gospel of Mark knows nothing of the virgin 
birth, of the Sermon on the Mount, of the Lord’s 
prayer, or of other important facts of the sup¬ 
posed life of Christ. These features were added 
by Matthew and Luke. 

But the Gospel of Mark, as we have it, is not 
the original Mark. In the same way that the 
writers of Matthew and Luke copied and enlarged 
the Gospel of Mark, Mark copied and enlarged 
an earlier document which is called the ‘ ‘ original 
Mark. ’ ’ This original source perished in the early 
age of the Church. What it was, who wrote it, 
where it was written, nobody knows. The Gos¬ 
pel of John is admitted by Christian scholars to 
be an unhistorical document. They acknowledge 
that it is not a life of Christ, but an interpretation 
of him; that it gives us an idealized and spiritual¬ 
ized picture of what Christ is supposed to have 
been, and that it is largely composed of the specu¬ 
lations of Greek philosophy. The Gospels of 
Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are called the 
“Synoptic Gospels,” on the one hand, and the 
Gospel of John, on the other, stand at opposite 
extremes of thought. So complete is the differ¬ 
ence between the teaching of the first three Gos- 

42 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


pels and that of the fourth, that every critic ad¬ 
mits that if Jesus taught as the Synoptics relate, 
he could not possibly have taught as John de¬ 
clares. Indeed, in the first three Gospels and in 
the fourth, we meet with two entirely different 
Christs. Did I say two? It should be three; for, 
according to Mark, Christ was a man; according 
to Matthew and Luke, he was a demigod; while 
John insists that he was God himself. 

There is not the smallest fragment of trust¬ 
worthy evidence to show that any of the Gospels 
were in existence, in their present form, earlier 
than a hundred years after the time at which 
Christ is supposed to have died. Christian schol¬ 
ars, having no reliable means by which to fix the 
date of their composition, assign them to as early 
2rr age as their calculations and their guesses will 
allow; but the dates thus arrived at are far re¬ 
moved from the age of Christ or his apostles. 
We are told that Mark was written some time 
after the year 70, Luke about 110, Matthew about 
130, and John not earlier than 140 A. D. Let me 
impress upon you that these dates are conjectural, 
and that they are made as early as possible. The 
first historical mention of the Gospels of Matthew, 
Mark and Luke, was made by the Christian 
Father, St. Irenaeus, about the year 190 A. D. 
The only earlier mention of any of the Gospels 
was made by Theopholis of Antioch, who men¬ 
tioned the Gospel of John in 180 A. D. 

43 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


There is absolutely nothing to show that these 
Gospels—the only sources of authority as to the 
existence of Christ—were written until a hundred 
and fifty years after the events they pretend to 
describe. Walter R. Cassels, the learned author 
of “Supernatural Religion,’’ one of the greatest 
works ever written on the origins of Christianity, 
says: “After having exhausted the literature and 
the testimony bearing on the point, we have not 
found a single distinct trace of any of those Gos¬ 
pels during the first century and a half after the 
death of Christ.” How can Gospels which were 
not written until a hundred and fifty years after 
Christ is supposed to have died, and which do not 
rest on any trustworthy testimony, have the 
slightest value as evidence that he really lived? 
History must be founded upon genuine documents 
or on living proof. Were a man of to-day to at¬ 
tempt to write the life of a supposed character of 
a hundred and fifty years ago, without any his¬ 
torical documents upon which to base his narra¬ 
tive, his work would not be a history, it would be 
a romance. Not a single statement in it could be 
relied upon. 

Christ is supposed to have been a Jew, and 
his disciples are said to have been Jewish fisher¬ 
men. His language, and the language of his fol¬ 
lowers must, therefore, have been Aramaic—the 
popular language of Palestine in that age. But 
the Gospels are written in Greek—every one of 

44 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


them. Nor were they translated from some other 
language. Every leading Christian scholar since 
Erasmus, four hundred years ago, has maintained 
that they were originally written in Greek. This 
proves that they were not written by Christ’s 
disciples, or by any of the early Christians. For¬ 
eign Gospels, written by unknown men, in a for¬ 
eign tongue, several generations after the death 
of those who are supposed to have known the 
facts—such is the evidence relied upon to prove 
that Jesus lived. 

But while the Gospels were written several 
generations too late to be of authority, the orig¬ 
inal documents, such as they were, were not pre¬ 
served. The Gospels that were written in the 
second century no longer exist. They have been 
lost or destroyed. The oldest Gospels that we 
have are supposed to be copies of copies of cop¬ 
ies that were made from those Gospels. V r e do 
not know who made these copies; we do not know 
when they were made; nor do we know whether 
they were honestly made. Between the earliest 
Gospels and the oldest existing manuscripts of 
the New Testament, there is a blank gulf of three 
hundred years. It is, therefore, impossible to 
say what the original Gospels contained. 

There were many Gospels in circulation in the 
early centuries, and a large number of them were 
forgeries. Among these were the “ Gospel of 

Paul,” the “Gospel of Bartholomew,” the “Gos- 

45 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 

pel of Judas Iscariot,” the “Gospel of the Egyp¬ 
tians,” the “Gospel or Recollections of Peter,” 
the “Oracles or Sayings of Christ,” and scores 
of other pious productions, a collection of which 
may still he read in “The Apocryphal New Testa¬ 
ment.” Obscure men wrote Gospels and attached 
the names of prominent Christian characters to 
them, to give them the appearance of importance. 
Works were forged in the names of the apostles, 
and even in the name of Christ. The greatest 
Christian teachers taught that it was a virtue to 
deceive and lie for the glory of the faith. Dean Mil- 
man, the standard Christian historian, says: 
“Pious fraud was admitted and avowed.” The 
Rev. Dr. Giles writes: “There can be no doubt that 
great numbers of books were then written with no 
other view than to deceive.” Professor Robertson 
Smith says: “There was an enormous floating 
mass of spurious literature created to suit party 
views. ’ ’ The early church was flooded with spur¬ 
ious religious writings. From this mass of liter¬ 
ature, our Gospels were selected by priests and 
called the inspired word of God. Were these 
Gospels also forged? There is no certainty that 
they were not. But let me ask: If Christ was an 
historical character, why was it necessary to forge 
documents to prove his existence? Did anybody 
ever think of forging documents to prove the ex¬ 
istence of any person who was really known to 

have lived? The early Christian forgeries are a 

4 $ 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


tremendous testimony to the weakness of the 
Christian cause. 

Spurious or genuine, let us see what the Gos¬ 
pels can tell us about the life of Jesus. Matthew 
and Luke give us the story of his genealogy. How 
do they agree? Matthew says there were forty- 
one generations from Abraham to Jesus. Luke 
says there were fifty-six. Yet both pretend to 
give the genealogy of Joseph, and both count the 
generations! Nor is this all. The Evangelists 
disagree on all but two names between David and 
Christ. These worthless genealogies show how 
much the New Testament writers knew about the 
ancestors of their hero. 

If Jesus lived, he must have been bom. When 
was he born? Matthew says he was born when 
Herod was King of Judea. Luke says he was born 
when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria. He could 
not have been born during the administration of 
these two rulers for Herod died in the year 4 B. C., 
and Cyrenius, who, in Roman history is Quirin- 
ius, did not become Governor of Syria until ten 
years later. Herod and Quirinius are separated 
by the whole reign of Archelaus, Herod’s son. 
Between Matthew and Luke, there is, therefore, 
a contradiction of at least ten years, as to the 
time of Christ’s birth. The fact is that the early 
Christians had absolutely no knowledge as to when 
Christ was born. The Encyclopaedia Britannica 
says: “Christians count one hundred and thirty- 

47 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


three contrary opinions of different authorities 
concerning the year the Messiah appeared on 
earth .’ 9 Think of it—one hundred and thirty- 
three different years, each one of which is held to 
be the year in which Christ came into the world. 
What magnificent certainty! 

Towards the close of the eighteenth century, 
Antonmaria Lupi, a learned Jesuit, wrote a work 
to show that the nativity of Christ has been as¬ 
signed to every month in the year, at one time or 
another. 

Where was Christ born? According to the 
Gospels, he was habitually called “ Jesus of Naz¬ 
areth.” The New Testament writers have en¬ 
deavored to leave the impression that Nazareth 
of Galilee was his home town. The Synoptic Gos¬ 
pels represent that thirty years of his life were 
spent there. Notwithstanding this, Matthew 
declares that he was born in Bethlehem in fulfill¬ 
ment of a prophecy in the Book of Micah. But 
the prophecy of Micah has nothing whatever to 
do with Jesus; it prophesies the coming of a mili¬ 
tary leader, not a divine teacher. Matthew’s ap¬ 
plication of this prophecy to Christ strengthens 
the suspicion that his Gospel is not history, but 
romance. Luke has it that his birth occurred at 
Bethlehem, whither his mother had gone with her 
husband, to make the enrollment called for by Au¬ 
gustus Caesar. Of the general census mentioned 
by Luke, nothing is known in Roman history. 

48 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


But suppose such a census was taken. The Roman 
custom, when an enrollment was made, was that 
every man was to report at his place of residence. 
The head of the family alone made report. In no 
case was his wife, or any dependent, required to be 
with him. In the face of this established custom, 
Luke declares that Joseph left his home in Naz¬ 
areth and crossed two provinces to go Bethlehem 
for the enrollment; and not only this, but that he 
had to be accompanied by his wife, Mary, who 
was on the very eve of becoming a mother. This 
surely is not history, but fable. The story that 
Christ was born at Bethlehem was a necessary 
part of the program which made him the Mes¬ 
siah, and the descendant of King David. The 
Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem, the city of 
David; and by what Renan calls a roundabout 
way, his birth was made to take place there. The 
story of his birth in the royal city is plainly fic¬ 
titious. 

His home was Nazareth. He was called 
16 Jesus of Nazareth”; and there he is said to have 
lived until the closing years of his life. Now 
comes the question—Was there a city of Nazareth 
in that age? The Encyclopaedia Biblica, a work 
written by theologians, the greatest biblical refer¬ 
ence work in the English language, says: “We 
cannot perhaps venture to assert positively that 
there was a city of Nazareth in Jesus’ time.” No 
certainty that there was a city of Nazareth! Not 

49 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


only are the supposed facts of the life of Christ 
imaginary, but the city of his birth and youth and 
manhood existed, so far as we know, only on the 
map of mythology. What amazing evidence to 
prove the reality of a Divine man! Absolute 
ignorance as to his ancestry; nothing whatever 
known of the time of his birth, and even the ex¬ 
istence of the city where he is said to have been 
born, a matter of grave question! 

After his birth, Christ, as it were, vanishes 
out of existence, and with the exception of a single 
incident recorded in Luke, we hear absolutely 
nothing of him until he has reached the age of 
thirty years. The account of his being found dis¬ 
cussing with the doctors in the Temple at Jeru¬ 
salem when he was but twelve years old, is told by 
Luke alone. The other Gospels are utterly ignor¬ 
ant of this discussion; and, this single incident 
excepted, the four Gospels maintain an unbroken 
silence with regard to thirty years of the life of 
their hero. What is the meaning of this silence? 
If the writers of the Gospels knew the facts of the 
life of Christ, why is it that they tell us absolutely 
nothing of thirty years of that life? What his¬ 
torical character can be named whose life for 
thirty years is an absolute blank to the world? 
If Christ was the incarnation of God, if he was 
the greatest teacher the world has known, if he 
came to save mankind from everlasting pain—was 
there nothing worth remembering in the first 

50 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


thirty years of his existence among men? The 
fact is that the Evangelists knew nothing of the 
life of Jesus, before his ministry; and they re¬ 
frained from inventing a childhood, youth and 
early manhood for him because it was not neces¬ 
sary to their purpose. 

Luke, however, deviated from the rule of 
slience long enough to write the Temple incident. 
The story of the discussion with the doctors in the 
Temple is proved to be mythical by all the circum¬ 
stances that surround it. The statement that his 
mother and father left Jerusalem, believing that 
he was with them; that they went a day’s journey 
before discovering that he was not in their com¬ 
pany; and that after searching for three days, 
they found him in the Temple asking and answer¬ 
ing questions of the learned Doctors, involves a 
series of tremendous improbabilities. Add to 
this the fact that the incident stands alone in Luke, 
surrounded by a period of silence covering thirty 
vears; add further that none of the other writers 
have said a word of the child Jesus discussing 
with the scholars of their nation; and add again 
the unlikelihood that a child would appear before 
serious-minded men in the role of an intellectual 
champion and the fabulous character of the story 
becomes perfectly clear. 

The Gospels know nothing of thirty years of 
Christ’s life What do they know of the last 
years of that life? How long did the ministry, 

51 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


the public career of Christ, continue? According 
to Matthew, Mark and Luke, the public life of 
Christ lasted about a year. If John’s Gospel is 
to be believed, his ministry covered about three 
years. The Synoptics teach that Christ’s public 
work was confined almost entirely to Galilee, and 
that he went to Jerusalem only once, not long be¬ 
fore his death. John is in hopeless disagreement 
with the other Evangelists as to the, scene of 
Christ’s labors. He maintains that most of the 
public life of Christ was spent in Judea, and that 
Christ was many times in Jerusalem. Now, be¬ 
tween Galilee and Judea there was the province 
of Samaria. If all but the last few weeks of 

4 

Christ’s ministry was carried on in his native 
province of Galilee, it is certain that the greater 
part of that ministry was not spent in Judea, two 
provinces away. 

John tells us that the driving of the money¬ 
changers from the Temple occurred at the be¬ 
ginning of Christ’s ministry; and nothing is said 
of any serious consequences following it. But 
Matthew, Mark and Luke declare that the purifi¬ 
cation of the Temple took place at the close of 
his career, and that this act brought upon him the 
wrath of the priests, who sought to destroy him. 
Because of these facts, the Encyclopedia Biblica 
assures us that the order of events in the life of 
Christ, as given by the Evangelists, is contra¬ 
dictory and untrustworthy; that the chronological 

52 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


framework of the Gospels is worthless; and that 
the facts “show only too clearly with what lack 
of concern for historical precision the Evangelists 
write. ” In other words, Matthew, Mark, Lnke 
and John wrote, not what they knew, but what 
they imagined. 

Christ is said to have been many times in 
Jernsalem. It is said that he preached daily in the 
Temple. He was followed by his twelve disciples, 
and by multitudes of enthusiastic men and wo¬ 
men. On the one hand, the people shouted hosan¬ 
nas in his honor, and on the other, priests engaged 
him in discussion and sought to take his life. All 
this shows that he must have been well known to 
the authorities. Indeed, he must have been one 
of the best known men in Jerusalem. Why, then, 
vras it necessary for the priests to bribe one of 
his disciples to betray him? Only an obscure 
man, whose identity was uncertain, or a man who 
was in hiding, would need to be betrayed. A man 
who appeared daily in the streets, who preached 
daily in the Temple, a man who was continually 
before the public eye, could have been arrested at 
any moment. The priests would not have bribed 
a man to betray a teacher whom everybody knew. 
If the accounts of Christ’s betrayal are true, all 
the declarations about his public appearances in 
Jerusalem must be false. 

Nothing could be more improbable than the 
story of Christ’s crucifixion. The civilization of 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


Rome was the highest in the world. The Romans 
were the greatest lawyers the world had ever 
known. Their courts were models of order and 
fairness. A man was not condemned without a 
trial; he was not handed to the executioner before 
being found guilty. And yet we are asked to be¬ 
lieve that an innocent man was brought before a 
Roman court, where Pontius Pilate was Judge; 
that no charge of wrongdoing having been brought 
against him, the Judge declared that he found 
him innocent; that the mob shouted, “Crucify 
him; crucify him!’ ’ and that to please the rabble, 
Pilate commanded that the man who had done no 
wrong and whom he had found innocent, should 
be scourged, and then delivered him to the execu¬ 
tioners to be crucified! Is it thinkable that the 
master of a Roman court in the days of Tiberius 
Caesar, having found a man innocent and de¬ 
clared him so, and having made efforts to save 
his life, tortured him of his own accord, and then 
handed him over to a howling mob to be nailed 
to a cross? A Roman court finding a man inno¬ 
cent and then crucifying him! Is that a picture 
of civilized Rome ? Is that the Rome to which the 
world owes its laws? In reading the story of 
the Crucifixion, are we reading history or religious 
fiction? Surely not history. 

On the theory that Christ was crucified, how 
shall we explain the fact that during the first eight 

centuries of the evolution of Christianity, Chris- 

64 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


tian art represented a lamb, and not a man, as 
suffering on the cross for the salvation of the 
world? Neither the paintings in the Catacombs 
nor the sculptures on Christian tombs pictured a 
human figure on the cross. Everywhere a lamb 
was shown as the Christian symbol—a lamb carry¬ 
ing a cross, a lamb at the foot of a cross, a lamb 
on a cross. Some figures showed the lamb with 
a human head, shoulders and arms, holding a 
cross in his hands—the lamb of God in process 
of assuming the human form—the crucifixion 
myth becoming realistic. At the close of the eighth 
century, Pope Hadrian I, confirming the decree of 
the sixth Synod of Constantinople, commanded 
that thereafter the figure of a man should take the 
place of a lamb on the cross. It took Christianity 
eight hundred years to develop the symbol of its 
suffering Savior. For eight hundred years, the 
Christ on the cross was a lamb. But if Christ 
was actually crucified, why was his place on the 
cross so long usurped by a lamb? In the light of 
history and reason, and in view of a lamb on the 
cross, why should we believe in the Crucifixion? 

And let us ask, if Christ performed the mir¬ 
acles the New Testament describes, if he gave 
sight to blind men’s eyes, if his magic touch 
brought youthful vigor to the palsied frame, if the 
putrefying dead at his command returned to life 
and love again—why did the people want him 
crucified? Is it not amazing that a civilized peo- 

55 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


pie—for the Jews of that age were civilized—were 
so filled with murderous hate towards a kind and 
loving man who went about doing good, who 
preached forgiveness, cleansed the leprous, and 
raised the dead—that they could not be appeased 
until they had crucified the noblest benefactor 0 ? 
mankind? Again I ask—is this history, or is it 
fiction? 

From the standpoint of the supposed facts, 
the account of the Crucifixion of Christ is as im¬ 
possible as is the raising of Lazarus from the 
standpoint of nature. The simple truth is, that 
the four Gospels are historically worthless. They 
abound in contradictions, in the unreasonable, the 
miraculous and the monstrous. There is not a 
thing in them that can be depended upon as true, 
while there is much in them that we certainly 
know to be false. 

The accounts of the virgin birth of Christ, of 
his feeding five thousand people with five loaves 
and two fishes, of his cleansing the leprous, of 
his walking on the water, of his raising the dead, 
and of his own resurrection after his life had been 
destroyed, are as untrue as any stories that were 
ever told in this world. The miraculous element 

4 

in the Gospels is proof that they were written by 
men, who did not know how to write history, or 
who were not particular as to the truth of w T hat 
they wrote. The miracles of the Gospels were 
invented by credulity or cunning, and if the mir- 

66 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


acles were invented, how can we know that the 
whole history of Christ was not woven of the 
warp and woof of the imagination? Dr. Paul W. 
Schmiedel, Professor of New Testament Exegesis 
at Zurich, Switzerland, one of the foremost theo¬ 
logians of Europe, tells us in the Encyclopaedia 
Biblica, that there are only nine passages in the 
Gospels that we can depend upon as being the 
sayings of Jesus; and Professor Arthur Drews, 
Germany’s greatest exponent of the doctrine that 
Christ is a myth, analyses these passages and 
shows that there is nothing in them that could not 
easily have been invented. That these passages 
are as unhistorical as the rest is also the conten¬ 
tion of John M. Robertson, the eminent English 
scholar, who holds that Jesus never lived. 

Let me make a startling disclosure. Let me 
tell you that the New Testament itself contains 
the strongest possible proof that the Christ of the 
Gospels was not a real character. The testimony 
of the Epistles of Paul demonstrates that the life 
story of Jesus is an invention. Of course, there 
is no certainty that Paul really lived. Let me 
quote a passage from the Encyclopaedia Biblica, 
relative to Paul: “It is true that the picture of 
Paul drawn by later times differs utterly in more 
or fewer of its details from the original. Legend 
has made itself master of his person. The sim¬ 
ple truth has been mixed up with invention; Paul 

has become the hero of an admiring band of the 

57 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


more highly developed Christians. ’’ Thus Chris¬ 
tian authority admits that invention has done its 
work in manufacturing at least in part, the life 
of Paul. In truth, the ablest Christian scholars 
reject all but four of the Pauline Epistles as spur¬ 
ious. Some maintain that Paul was not the author 
of any of them. The very existence of Paul is 
questionable. 

But for the purpose of my argument, I am 
going to admit that Paul really lived; that he was 
a zealous apostle; and that all the Epistles are 
from his pen. There are thirteen of these Epis¬ 
tles. Some of them are lengthy; and they are 
acknowledged to be the oldest Christian writings. 
They were written long before the Gospels. If 
Paul really wrote them, they were written by a 
man who lived in Jerusalem when Christ is sup¬ 
posed to have been teaching there. Now, if the 
facts of the life of Christ were known in the first 
century of Christianity, Paul was one of the men 
who should have known them fully. Yet Paul 
acknowledges that he never saw Jesus; and his 
Epistles prove that he knew nothing about his 
life, his works, or his teachings. 

In all the Epistles of Paul, there is not one 
word about Christ’s virgin birth. The apostle is 
absolutely ignorant of the marvellous manner in 
which Jesus is said to have come into the world. 
For this silence, there can be only one honest ex¬ 
planation—the story of the virgin birth had not 

58 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


yet been invented when Paul wrote. A large por¬ 
tion of the Gospels is devoted to accounts of the 
miracles Christ is said to have wrought. But you 
will look in vain through the thirteen Epistles of 
Paul for the slightest hint that Christ ever per¬ 
formed any miracles. Is it conceivable that Paul 
was acquainted with the miracles of Christ—that 
he knew that Christ had cleansed the leprous, cast 
out devils that could talk, restored sight to the 
blind and speech to the dumb, and even raised the 
dead—is it conceivable that Paul was aware of 
these wonderful things and yet failed to write a 
single line about them? Again, the only solution 
is that the accounts of the miracles wrought by 
Jesus had not yet been invented when PauPs Epis¬ 
tles were written. 

Not only is Paul silent about the virgin birth 
and the miracles of Jesus, he is without the 
slightest knowledge of the teaching of Jesus. The 
Christ of the Gospels preached a famous sermon 
on a mountain: Paul knows nothing of it. Christ 
delivered a prayer now recited by the Christian 
world: Paul never heard of it. Christ taught in 
parables: Paul is utterly unacquainted with any 
of them. Is not this astonishing? Paul, the 
greatest writer of early Christianity, the man who 
did more than any other to establish the Christian 
religion in the world—that is, if the Epistles may 
be trusted—is absolutely ignorant of the teach¬ 
ing of Christ. In all of his thirteen Epistles he 

59 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


does not quote a single saying of Jesus. 

Paul was a missionary. He was out for con¬ 
verts. Is it thinkable that if the teachings of 
Christ had been known to him, he would not have 
made use of them in his propaganda? Can you 
believe that a Christian missionary would go to 
China and labor for many years to win converts 
to the religion of Christ, and never once mention 
the Sermon on the Mount, never whisper a word 
about the Lord’s Prayer, never tell the story of 
one of the parables, and remain as silent as the 
grave about the precepts of his master? What 
have the churches been teaching throughout the 
Christian centuries if not these very things ? Are 
not the churches of to-day continually preaching 
about the virgin birth, the miracles, the parables, 
and the precepts of Jesus? And do not these 
features constitute Christianity? Is there any 
life of Christ, apart from these things? Why, 
then, does Paul know nothing of them? There is 
but one answer. The virgin-born, miracle-work¬ 
ing, preaching Christ was unknown to the world 
in Paul’s day. That is to say, he had not yet been 
invented! 

The Christ of Paul and the Jesus of the Gos¬ 
pels are two entirely different beings. The Christ 
of Paul is little more than an idea. He has no life 
story. He was not followed by the multitude. 
He performed no miracles. He did no preaching. 
The Christ Paul knew was the Christ he saw in a 

60 



DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


vision while on his way to Damascus—an appari¬ 
tion, a phantom, not a living, human being, who 
preached and worked among men. This vision- 
Christ, this ghostly word, was afterwards brought 
to the earth by those who wrote the Gospels. He 
was given a Holy Ghost for a father and a virgin 
for a mother. He was made to preach, to per¬ 
form astounding miracles, to die a violent death 
though innocent, and to rise in triumph from the 
grave and ascend again to heaven. Such is the 
Christ of the New Testament—first a spirit, and 
later a miraculously born, miracle working man, 
who is master of death and whom death cannot 
subdue. 

A large body of opinion in the early church 
denied the reality of Christ’s physical existence. 
In his “History of Christianity,” Dean Milman 
writes: “The Gnostic sects denied that Christ was 
born at all, or that he died,” and Mosheim, Ger¬ 
many ’s great ecclesiastical historian, says: i 1 The 
prevalent opinion among early Christians was 
that Christ existed in appearance only.” The 
Christ of early Christianity was not a human 
being, but an “appearance,” an illusion, a char¬ 
acter in miracle, not in reality—a myth. 

Miracles do not happen. Stories of miracles 
are untrue. Therefore, documents in which mir¬ 
aculous accounts are interwoven with reputed 
facts, are untrustworthy, for those who invented 

the miraculous element might easily have in- 

61 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


vented the part that was natural. Men are com¬ 
mon; Gods are rare; therefore, it is at least as 
easy to invent the biography of a man as the his¬ 
tory of a God. For this reason, the whole story 
of Christ—the human element as well as the di¬ 
vine—is without valid claim to be regarded as 
true. If miracles are fictions, Christ is a myth. 
Said Dean Farrar: 4 ‘If miracles be incredible, 
Christianity is false.” Bishop Westcott wrote: 
“The essence of Christianity lies in a miracle; 
and if it can be shown that a miracle is either im¬ 
possible or incredible, all further inquiry into the 
details of its history is superfluous.’ ’ Not only 
are miracles incredible, but the uniformity of na¬ 
ture declares them to be impossible. Miracles 
have gone: the miraculous Christ cannot remain. 

If Christ lived, if he was a reformer, if he per¬ 
formed wonderful works that attracted the atten¬ 
tion of the multitude, if he came in conflict with 
the authorities and was crucified—how shall we 
explain the fact that history has not even recorded 
his name? The age in which he is said to have 
lived was an age of scholars and thinkers. In 
Greece, Rome and Palestine, there were philoso¬ 
phers, historians, poets, orators, jurists and 
statesmen. Every fact of importance was noted 
by interested and inquiring minds. Some of the 
greatest writers the Jewish race has produced 
lived in that age. And yet, in all the writings of 
that period, there is not one line, not one word, 

62 



DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


not one letter, about Jesus. Great writers wrote 
extensively of events of minor importance, but not 
one of them wrote a word about the mightiest 
character who had ever appeared on earth—a 
man at whose command the leprous were made 
clean, a man who fed five thousand people with a 
satchel full of bread, a man whose word defied the 
grave and gave life to the dead. 

John E. Remsburg, in his scholarly work on 
“The Christ,” has compiled a list of forty-two 
writers who lived and wrote during the time or 
within a century after the time, of Christ, not one 
of whom ever mentioned him. 

Philo, one of the most renowned writers 
the Jewish race has produced, was born before 
the beginning of the Christian Era, and lived for 
many years after the time at which Jesus is sup¬ 
posed to have died. His home was in or near 
Jerusalem, where Jesus is said to have preached, 
to have performed miracles, to have been cruci¬ 
fied, and to have risen from the dead. Had Jesus 
done these things, the writings of Philo would 
certainly contain some record of his life. Yet 
this philosopher, who must have been: familiar 
with Herod’s massacre of the innocents, and with 
the preaching, miracles and death of Jesus, had 
these things occurred; who wrote an account of 
the Jews, covering this period, and discussed the 
very questions that are said to have been near to 

Christ’s heart, never once mentioned the name of, 

63 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


or any deed connected with, the reputed Savior of 
the world. 

In the closing years of the first century, Jose¬ 
phus, the celebrated Jewish historian, wrote his 
famous work on 1 ‘The Antiquities of the Jews.” 
In this work, the historian made no mention of 
Christ, and for two hundred years after the death 
of Josephus, the name of Christ did not appear 
in his history. There were no printing presses 
in those days. Books were multiplied by being 
copied. It was, therefore, easy to add to or change 
what an author had written. The church felt 
that Josephus ought to recognize Christ, and the 
dead historian was made to do it. In the fourth 
century, a copy of “The Antiquities of the Jews” 
appeared, in which occurred this passage: “Now, 
there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it 
be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of 
wonderful works; a teacher of such men as re¬ 
ceived the truth with pleasure. He drew over to 
him both many of the Jews and many of the 
Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at 
the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, 
had condemned him to the cross, those that loved 
him at the first did not forsake him; for he ap¬ 
peared to them alive again the third day, as the 
divine prophets had foretold these and ten thou¬ 
sand other wonderful things concerning him; and 
the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are 
not extinct at this day. ’ 9 


64 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


Such is the celebrated reference to Christ in 
Josephus. A more brazen forgery was never 
perpetrated. For more than two hundred years, 
the Christian Fathers who were familiar with the 
works of Josephus knew nothing of this passage. 
Had the passage been in the works of Josephus 
which they knew, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, 
Origen and Clement of Alexandria would have 
been eager to hurl it at their Jewish opponents 
in their many controversies. But it did not ex¬ 
ist. Indeed, Origen, who knew his Josephus well, 
expressly affirmed that that writer had not ac¬ 
knowledged Christ. This passage first appeared 
in the writings of the Christian Father Eusebius, 
the first historian of Christianity, early in the 
fourth century; and it is believed that he was its 
author. Eusebius, who not only advocated fraud 
in the interest of the faith, but who is known to 
have tampered with passages in the works of 
Josephus and several other writers, introduces 
this passage in his “Evangelical Demonstration,” 
(Book III., p. 124), in these words: “ Certainly the 
attestations I have already produced concerning 
our Savior may be sufficient. However, it may 
not be amiss, if, over and above, we make use of 
Josephus the Jew for a further witness.” 

Everything demonstrates the spurious char¬ 
acter of the passage. It is written in the style of 
Eusebius, and not in the style of Josephus. Jose¬ 
phus was a voluminous writer. He wrote exten- 

65 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


sively about men of minor importance. The bre¬ 
vity of this reference to Christ is, therefore, a 
strong argument for its falsity. This passage in¬ 
terrupts the narrative. It has nothing to do with 
what precedes or what follows it; and its position 
clearly shows that the text of the historian has 
been separated by a later hand to give it room. 
Josephus was a Jew—a priest of the religion of 
Moses. This passage makes him acknowledge 
the divinity, the miracles, and the resurrection of 
Christ—that is to say, it makes an orthodox Jew 
talk like a believing Christian! Josephus could 
not possibly have written these words without 
being logically compelled to embrace Christianity. 
All the arguments of history and of reason unite 
in the conclusive proof that the passage is an un¬ 
blushing forgery. 

For these reasons every honest Christian 
scholar has abandoned it as an interpolation. 
Dean Milman says: “It is interpolated with many 
additional clauses. ,, Dean Farrar, writing in the 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, says: “That Josephus 
wrote the whole passage as it now stands no sane 
critic can believe.” Bishop Warburton denounced 
it as “a rank forgery and a very stupid one, too.” 
Chambers ’ Encyclopaedia says:“ The famous pas¬ 
sage of Josephus is generally conceded to be an in¬ 
terpolation. ” 

In the “Annals” of Tacitus, the Roman his¬ 
torian, there is another short passage which 

66 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 

speaks of “Christas” as being the founder of a 
party called Christians—a body of people “who 
were abhorred for their crimes.” These words 
occur in Tacitus’ account of the burning of Rome. 
The evidence for this passage is not much 
stronger than that for the passage in Josephus. 
It was not quoted by any writer before the fif¬ 
teenth century; and when it was quoted, there 
was only one copy of the “Annals” in the world; 
and that copy was supposed to have been made 
in the eighth century—six hundred years after 
Tacitus’ death. The “Annals” were published 
between 115 and 117 A. D., nearly a century after 
Jesus’ time—so the passage, even if genuine, 
would not prove anything as to Jesus. 

The name “Jesus” was as common among the 
Jews as is William or George with us. In the 
writings of Josephus, we find accounts of a num¬ 
ber of Jesuses. One was Jesus, the son of Sap- 
phias, the founder of a seditious band of mar¬ 
iners; another was Jesus, the captain of the rob¬ 
bers whose followers fled when they heard of his 
arrest; still another Jesus was a monomaniac who 
for seven years went about Jerusalem, crying, 
“Woe, woe, woe unto Jerusalem!” who was 
bruised and beaten many times, but offered no re¬ 
sistance ; and who was finally killed with a stone 
at the siege of Jerusalem. 

The word “Christ,” the Greek equivalent of 
the Jewish word “Messiah,” was not a personal 

67 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 

name; it was a title; it meant “the Anointed 
One .’ 9 

The Jews were looking for a Messiah, a suc¬ 
cessful political leader, who would restore the in¬ 
dependence of their nation. Josephus tells us of 
many men who posed as Messiahs, who obtained 
a following among the people, and who were put 
to death by the Romans for political reasons. One 
of these Messiahs, or Christs, a Samaritan pro¬ 
phet, was executed under Pontius Pilate; and so 
great was the indignation of the Jews that Pilate 
had to be recalled by the Roman government. 

These facts are of tremendous significance. 
While the Jesus Christ of Christianity is unknown 
to history, the age in which he is said to have lived 
was an age in which many men bore the name of 
“ Jesus’’ and many political leaders assumed the 
title of ‘ ‘ Christ. ’ ’ All the materials necessary for 
the manufacture of the story of Christ existed in 
that age. In all the ancient countries, divine Sa¬ 
viors were believed to have been born of virgins, 
to have preached a new religion, to have per¬ 
formed miracles, to have been crucified as atone¬ 
ments for the sins of mankind, and to have risen 
from the grave and ascended into heaven. All that 
Jesus is supposed to have taught was in the liter¬ 
ature of the time. In the story of Christ there is 
not a new idea, as Joseph McCabe has shown in 
his “Sources of the Morality of the Gospels/’ and 

John M. Robertson in his “Pagan Christs.” 

68 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 

“But,” says the Christian, “Christ is so per¬ 
fect a character that he could not have been in¬ 
vented.” This is a mistake. The Gospels do not 
portray a perfect character. The Christ of the 
Gospels is shown to be artificial by the numerous 
contradictions in his character and teachings. He 
was in favor of the sword, and he was not; he told 
men to love their enemies, and advised them to 
hate their friends; he preached the doctrine of 
forgiveness, and called men a generation of vi¬ 
pers; he announced himself as the judge of the 
world, and declared that he would judge no man; 
he taught that he was possessed of all power, but 
was unable to work miracles where the people did 
not believe; he was represented as God and did 
not shrink from avowing, “I and my Father are 
one,” but in the pain and gloom of the cross, he 
is made to cry out in his anguish: “My God, my 
God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” And how 
singular it is that these words, reputed as the dy¬ 
ing utterance of the disillusioned Christ, should 
be not only contradicted by two Evangelists, but 
should be a quotation from the twenty-second 
Psalm! 

If there is a moment when a man’s speech is 
original, it is when, amid agony and despair, while 
his heart is breaking beneath its burden of defeat 
and disappointment, he utters a cry of grief from 
the depth of his wounded soul with the last breath 

that remains before the chill waves of death en- 

69 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


gulf his wasted life forever. But on the lips of 
the expiring Christ are placed, not the heart-felt 
words of a dying man, but a quotation from the 
literature of his race! 

A being with these contradictions, these trans¬ 
parent unrealities in his character, could scarcely 
have been real. 

And if Christ, with all that is miraculous and 
impossible in his nature, could not have been in¬ 
vented, what shall we say of Othello, of Hamlet, 
of Romeo? Do not Shakespeare’s wondrous 
characters live upon the stage? Does not their 
naturalness, their consistency, their human gran¬ 
deur, challenge our admiration? And is it not 
with difficulty that we believe them to be children 
of the imagination ? Laying aside the miraculous, 
in the story of the Jewish hero, is not the char¬ 
acter of Jean Valjean as deep, as lofty, as broad, 
as rich in its humanity, as tender in its pathos, 
as sublime in its heroism, and as touchingly re¬ 
signed to the cruelties of fate as the character of 
Jesus ? Who has read the story of that marvelous 
man without being thrilled? And who has fol¬ 
lowed him through his last days with dry eyes? 
And yet Jean Valjean never lived and never died; 
he was not a real man, but the personification of 
suffering virtue born in the effulgent brain of Vic¬ 
tor Hugo. Have you not wept when you have seen 
Sydney Carton disguise himself and lay his neck 
beneath the blood-stained knife of the guillotine, 

70 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


to save the life of Evremonde! But Sydney 
Carton was not an actual human being; he is the 
heroic, self-sacrificing spirit of humanity clothed 
in human form by the genius of Charles Dickens. 

Yes, the character of Christ could have been 
invented! The literature of the world is filled 
with invented characters; and the imaginary lives 
of the splendid men and women of fiction will for¬ 
ever arrest the interest of the mind and hold the 
heart enthralled. But how account for Christian¬ 
ity if Christ did not live! Let me ask another 
question. How account for the Renaissance, for 
the Reformation, for the French Revolution, or 
for Socialism! Not one of these movements was 
created by an individual. They grew. Chris¬ 
tianity grew. The Christian church is older than 
the oldest Christian writings. Christ did not pro¬ 
duce the church. The church produced the story 
of Christ. 

The Jesus Christ of the Gospels could not pos¬ 
sibly have been a real person. He is a combina¬ 
tion of impossible elements. There may have lived 
in Palestine, nineteen centuries ago, a man whose 
name was Jesus, who went about doing good, who 
was followed by admiring associates, and who in 
the end met a violent death. But of this possible 
person, not a line was written when he lived, and 
of his life and character the world of to-day knows 
absolutely nothing. This Jesus, if he lived, was 
a man; and if he was a reformer, he was but one 

71 


DID JESUS CHRIST REALLY LIVE? 


of the many that have lived and died in every age 
of the world. When the world shall have learned 
that the Christ of the Gospels is a myth, that 
Christianity is untrue, it will turn its attention 
from the religious fictions of the past to the vital 
problems of to-day, and endeavor to solve them 
for the improvement of the well-being of the real 
men and women whom we know, and whom we 
ought to help and love. 


72 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM 

THE DEAD ? 

The corner stone of Christianity is the resur¬ 
rection of Jesus Christ. If Christ did not rise 
from the dead, Christianity crumbles. Prove 
that Christ did not rise from the dead, and you 
prove that Christianity is but a superstition—a 
superstition born of ignorance and credulity, of 
piety and fraud, of weakness and cunning, of 
priestcraft and persecution—a superstition that 
must disappear as fast as its real character is 
found out. 

I purpose to examine in this lecture what is 
called the evidence for the resurrection of Christ. 
Truth always gains from being investigated; it is 
error alone that shrinks from inquiry. 

The doctrine of the resurrection from the dead 
is far older than Christianity. Thousands of 
years before the preaching peasant of Palestine 
was born, India, Egypt, Babylonia—all the an¬ 
cient countries, indeed—knew the story of the 
resurrection. These countries, whose religions 
were of great antiquity, had numerous gods. They 
had virgin-born saviors who were the sons of their 
gods. These saviors, while they lived, preached 

73 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 


and worked miracles, and after their death, they 
arose again and ascended into heaven. 

All the doctrines of Christianity are far older 
than Christ; and all that can be said in favor of 
the resurrection of Christ can be said in favor of 
the resurrection of a dozen other saviors. Let us 
consider for a moment the resurrection of some 
of these pagan gods. 

About twelve centuries before Christ was born 
—and there is no certainty at all that he ever was 
born—Chrishna, the crucified Hindoo savior, rose 
from the dead and ascended into heaven. At¬ 
tended by celestial spirits, amid the wondrous il¬ 
lumination of heaven and earth, Chrishna, the 
savior of men, slowly rose from earth to Para¬ 
dise, while witnesses exclaimed with joy: “Lo, 
Chrishna’s soul ascends its native skies.” 

Five centuries before Christ, the great Buddha, 
the founder of Buddhism—a religion that now em¬ 
braces one-third of the human race—lay dead in 
India. From heaven’s supreme God came the com¬ 
mand: ‘ 4 Rise, Holy Love!” Then the shroud 
of Buddha unrolled itself; by divine power 
the lid of his coffin was removed; and Buddha, the 
Enlightened One, the savior of mankind, released 
from the grip of death, rose to heaven’s glory. 

Ancient Egypt worshipped the risen Osiris. 
Mr. Bonwick, in his “Egyptian Belief,” says: “It 
is astonishing to find that, a'- least five thousand 

years ago, men trusted in Osiris as the ‘risen sav- 

74 



DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 


ior’ and confidently hoped to rise, as lie arose, 
from the grave.’’ Among the Greeks, Aesculap¬ 
ius, the son of God, the savior, the divine healer, 
—he who was called the “Great Physician”— 
after being put to death, rose in triumph from the 
grave. In the following manner, the poet Ovid 
makes the mother of Aesculapius tell in prophetic 
form, the story of the life, death and resurrection 
of her divine child: 

“Once, as the sacred infant she surveyed. 

The god was kindled in the raving maid; 

And thus she uttered her prophetic tale: 

Hail, great Physician of the world! all hail I 
Hail, mighty infant, who in years to come 
Shall heal the nations, and defraud the tomb! 

Swift be thy growth, thy triumphs unconfined. 

Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind. 

Thy daring art shall animate the dead, 

And draw the thunder on thy guilty head; 

Then shalt thou die, but from the dark abode 
Shalt rise victorious , and be twice a god.” } 

The resurrection of gods was a fundamental 
idea in the religions of all the nations by which 
the Jews were surrounded. With these religions 
the Jews were familiar, and from them they bor¬ 
rowed many ideas. For example, the worship of 
Adonis, the virgin-born savior of the Syrians, was 
well known to the Jews long before the time of 
Christ The Jews themselves worshipped Adonis. 
This was a part of the idolatry into which they 
were continually lapsing. In the Hebrew, the 
word 6 ‘Adonis, ’ 9 means 1 i Our Lord’ 9 ; and this god 

75 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 


had an altar in the very temple of Jehovah at 
Jerusalem. The resurrection of Adonis was an¬ 
nually celebrated in Judea—in Bethlehem, indeed 
—even as late as 386 A.D. St. Jerome says: ‘ ‘ Over 
Bethlehem (in the year 386 after Christ) the grove 
of Tammuz, that is, of Adonis, was casting its 
shadow! And in the grotto where formerly the 
infant Anointed ( i . e., Christ Jesus) cried, the 
lover of Venus was being mourned. ” Observe 
the significance of this declaration. In the grotto, 
the cave, where Jesus cried, Adonis, says this 
Christian Father, was mourned. For centuries 
the church had a tradition that Christ was born in 
a cave. Among the Fathers of the church, w T ho 
believed that tradition, was St. Jerome, the 
learned ecclesiastic who translated the Latin Vul¬ 
gate of the Bible, and thus gave the Christian 
world its 4 ‘Word of God.” This saint tells us 
that nearly four hundred years after the birth of 
Christ, the death and resurrection of Adonis, the 
mythical savior of the Syrians, were observed in 
the very cave where the Christian savior was be¬ 
lieved to have been born. But there is another 
thing worth noting in connection with the death 
and resurrection of Adonis, and that is that ac¬ 
cording to the learned author of that masterpiece 
of scholarship—“Bible Myths and their Parallels 
in other Religions”—the celebration of the resur¬ 
rection of Adonis, became the celebration of the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Is there any won- 

76 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 


der that orthodox churches are silent about the 
science of comparative religions, when that science 
proves that our reputed divine religion is but a 
pagan superstition under another name? How 
could the clergy preach about the uniqueness of 
Christ if their congregations were familiar with 
Kersey Graves’ learned work, “The World’s 
Sixteen Crucified Saviors?” 

For if the story of the resurrection of a god 
who was the son of a god is far older than Chris¬ 
tianity, if thousands of millions of people in 
India, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Greece and Rome 
lived and died in the conviction that savior gods 
had risen from the dead in their behalf, and if 
these resurrection stories were well known to the 
people among whom Christianity arose, how can 
we be certain that the account of Christ’s resur¬ 
rection is not the ancient myth told again? 

The worship of Osiris continued for about six 
thousand years. During that time thousands of 
millions of Egyptians implicitly believed that ho 
had risen from the dead. Christianity is less than 
two thousand years old; and the resurrection of 
Christ is rejected to-day by nearly every human 
being who has impartially examined its claims. 
By what criterion, then, shall we decide that the 
resurrection of Osiris was a fable, while the resur¬ 
rection of Christ was a fact? Buddhism is at this 
hour the religion of five hundred million human 
beings. Christianity in all its forms cannot num- 

77 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


ber one million intelligent believers—people who 
know what they believe, and why they believe it; 
people who have examined the foundations of 
their faith, and are satisfied that those founda¬ 
tions are sound. By what standard, I ask again, 
are we justified in determining that the Buddhists 
are mistaken about the resurrection of their sav¬ 
ior, and that the Christian belief is founded upon 
a revelation from God! Is a religion false merely 
because it happens to be another man’s religion? 
Is my religion true simply because it is mine? 
Buddha, according to Buddhism, arose from the 
dead, five hundred years before Christ was born. 
Does that make the story of his resurrection false? 
Buddhism is the religion of more than twice as 
many people as seriously profess Christianity. 
Does that prove that Buddha did not rise from the 
dead, but that Christ did? Why, my Christian 
friend, do you reject as false the divine resurrec¬ 
tions of the old religions, and accept as true the 
resurrection story of the religion of yesterday? 

Will you answer by saying that Buddha was 
only a man, and, therefore, could not rise from 
the dead; that Christ was God, and as God, con¬ 
quered the grave? Let me show you that this is 
the position you must take; I shall also show you 
that you can not maintain it. If Christ was only 
a man, his death was only a human death, and 
therefore could not be an atonement for the sins 

of the world. Christianity teaches that Christ 

78 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


% 


was God; that his sacrifice was divine and infinite; 
and that as God, he rose from the dead. But if 
Christ was God, how could he die? How could 
a few moments’ suffering destroy the infinite re¬ 
sources of a God’s longevity? How could a God’s 
infinite hold on life be conquered by the frail 
means used to overcome the life of a man? Noth¬ 
ing could be more flagrantly absurd than the idea 
that a God was put to death by piercing the hands 
and feet of a Jewish peasant! 

But let us suppose that God did die. Let us 
suppose that the creator of the universe threw his 
life away, and allowed the crucifixion to reduce 
him to the cold, pathetic stillness of death. God 
was dead! They buried him! God lay dead in 
the tomb! Well, how did he come to life again? 
Who, or what, resurrected him? A dead God be¬ 
comes a living God—by what means? Could he 
thrill his nerves with the melody of life when he 
was dead? Could he, in death, re-animate with 
infinite designs the brain from which all conscious¬ 
ness had fled? If he could not return himself to 
life, what in the universe could restore him? There 
was no other God to resurrect him. He was the 
only God, and he was dead! Think of the auda¬ 
city of the superstition that would attempt to 
paralyze our faculties and dwarf our minds, per¬ 
vert our emotions and benumb our; powers of 
perception, by having us believe that a God of infi¬ 
nite wisdom and power—grand, wondrous and 

79 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


sublime in the wealth of his everlasting mastery of 
a boundless universe—came down among the an¬ 
cient Jews; allowed them to nail him to a cross; 
threw away his life with the recklessness of a 
gamester; was buried in a hole in a rock just out¬ 
side of Jerusalem; and there, while dead, infused 
himself with life again; fled from his tomb, and 
flew back to heaven! No Arabian tale, no story 
ever invented to scare children, could be more ab¬ 
surdly false than this fundamental fable of Chris¬ 
tianity. How apropos are the words of Shakes¬ 
peare : 4 ‘In religion, what damned error; but some 
sober brow will bless it and approve it with a text; 
hiding its grossness with fair ornament.” If 
Christ was a man, he did not rise from the dead, 
for dead men have the uniform habit of staying 
dead. If he was God, he could not and did not die, 
and therefore, he could not and did not rise from 
the dead. 

There is another point I wish to bring before 
you. Suppose there was a Jewish reformer named 
Jesus two thousand years ago; suppose his ene¬ 
mies succeeded in bringing him to the cross; how 
can it be known that he died in the crucifixion? 
According to the Gospel of Luke, Christ was on 
the cross about three hours. Ifi Mark is correct, 
he hung on the cross about six hours. It is alto¬ 
gether improbable that a man should have died 
of crucifixion in that length of time. Crucifixion 

was a long-drawn-out agony. The victim died. 

80 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 

not from the loss of blood, but from, the pro¬ 
tracted nervous strain and from hunger. Fre¬ 
quently, the crucified lived on the cross for sev¬ 
eral days. A Negro slave, crucified in Jamaica 
in 1760, lived on the cross for two hundred and 
ten hours—nearly nine days. In Kitto’s “Bib¬ 
lical Encyclopedia, ’ ’ a standard orthodox work, 
it is said that “We may consider thirty-six hours 
to be the earliest period at which crucifixion would 
occasion death in a healthy adult.” Now if a 
healthy man would live at least thirty-six hours 
on a cross, how shall we explain the death of 
Christ in three or six hours? Was Christ a weak¬ 
ling ? Did he lack average health and endurance ? 
Why did he die in so short a time? Again, we 
are told that the soldiers broke the legs of the 
thieves, who were crucified with him, but his legs 
were not broken. This makes it more difficult to 
believe that he should have died so early; and 
quite reasonable to suppose that these unbroken 
legs may have enabled him to get away later on! 
It is said, however, that he was speared in the 
side, and that blood and water came from the 
wound. But nothing is said as to the seriousness 
of this wound. It was only in the side, and there 
is no intimation that it touched any vital organ, or 
was more than a slight flesh wound. Moreover, 
science, voicing its conclusion in Dr. SchmiedeFs 
article on “John, Son of Zebedee,” in the “En¬ 
cyclopedia Biblica,” declares that, “In spite of 

81 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 


all efforts, no one has yet been able to show that 
blood and water actually do flow from a wound 
of this kind.” The Gospel fabulist was not up in 
bis physiology! 

When told that Christ was dead, Pilate mar¬ 
veled that he should have died in so short a time; 
and when the crucified was taken from the cross, 
he was not examined by physicians to ascertain 
whether he was really dead. No effort was made 
to determine whether the last spark of life had 
fled. No restoratives were administered. In 
view of these facts, who shall say that Christ was 
dead? How can we know that he had not swooned? 
How can we be sure that his disappointment and 
his pain had not banished consciousness from her 
throne while life remained? How can we be cer¬ 
tain that he was not buried alive, but unconscious ? 
He was not buried in the earth. He w T as laid in 
a sepulcher in a rock. Against the mouth of this 
tomb a stone was rolled. If he w~as yet alive he 
had air to breathe, and in a few hours he may 
have recovered consciousness. Perhaps the stone 
that stood between him and freedom was not too 
large for him to roll away; or his disciples, return¬ 
ing to the tomb in the night, may have heard his 
cry for assistance, and helped him to make his es¬ 
cape. On the other hand, if he was dead, they may 
have stolen away his body and buried it where 
none might find his grave. Either of these suppos¬ 
itions is infinitely more probable that that a dead 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


man or a dead God, rose from the dead. Men in 
pain have swooned; men have been buried alive; 
dead men have been stolen from their graves. 
These things are natural—within human exper¬ 
ience. But all experience denies that a dead man 
ever became alive again; and the whole universe 
mocks the superstition that a God could die! 

Do I hear some Christian say that the Roman 
soldiers guarded Jesus’ tomb, and that, therefore, 
his disciples could not have stolen his body? Mat¬ 
thew is the only writer who mentions the Roman 
guard; and he assures us that the guard was not 
placed at the tomb until the second night. During 
the whole of the first night, there was no guard 
at the grave. What was there, then, to prevent 
Christ’s escape, if he were alive, or his body from 
being taken away, if he were dead? Nothing! 
Admitting, therefore, that soldiers were stationed 
at Jesus’ grave on the second night, as Matthew 
says; admitting also that they sealed the tomb, 
and stood guard until they were officially relieved 
of their watch, the story of the resurrection gains 
nothing, for he may have escaped, or been stolen 
away, during the first night, when, as yet, there 
was no guard about. In such a situation, we 
might reasonably suppose that the soldiers ar¬ 
rived a day too late, and that they guarded an 
empty tomb. 

But there is something else to be said in con¬ 
nection with the guard. Who went to Pilate and 

83 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 


asked him to set a guard at the sepulcher? The 
chief priests and Pharisees—the Jewish Sanhe¬ 
drin. Why did they ask for a guard? Mat¬ 
thew says they said to Pilate: “Lest his disciples 
come by night and steal him away, and say unto 
the people, he is risen from the dead.” Mark 
well this fact—the day after the crucifixion of 
Christ, the idea of his being stolen from the grave 
was, according to Matthew, in the minds of the 
Jewish leaders. Is not that significant? In as¬ 
suring us that the Jews feared that the body of 
Jesus would be stolen, the “inspired” writer un¬ 
wittingly suggests the solution of the empty tomb I 

But was there really a guard at the sepulcher ? 
Matthew alone say there was. The testimony of 
the other Gospels proves that there was not. That 
testimony is negative, positive and conclusive;— 
negative, in that neither Mark, nor Luke, nor 
John knows anything whatever of the guard— 
positive, in that according to Mark and Luke the 
women brought spices to anoint the body of Jesus, 
which they would not have done had they known 
that Roman soldiers stood sentinel at his grave, 
—conclusive, in that the women on reaching the 
tomb, said among themselves: “Who shall roll us 
away the stone from the door of the sepulcher?” 
The women saw no soldiers at the tomb, either 
to guard it or to roll from its portal the closing 
stone, because there were none there. 

That the story of the watch is a myth is fur- 

84 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 

ther proved by Matthew’s statement that the Jew¬ 
ish priests bribed the soldiers to say that, “His 
disciples came by night, and stole him away while 
we slept.” The Roman soldier’s devotion to duty 
has never been surpassed in the military annals 
of the world. Moreover, under the inflexible dis¬ 
cipline of Roman militarism, the soldier who slept 
on duty was unceremoniously executed. Yet Mat¬ 
thew would have us believe that for a bribe, 
Roman soldiers not only sold out their honor, 
but exposed themselves to the certainty of immedi¬ 
ate and ignominious death! This is not only a 
libel alike on the integrity and sanity of the mar¬ 
tial character of Rome: it is an insult to the com¬ 
mon sense of the world. 

If yet further testimony be required to prove 
that there was no watch at the tomb, it is found 
in the fact that, according to the Gospels, nobody 
felt the need of one. Why? Because the dis¬ 
ciples believed that Christ was dead, and that he 
would remain dead—because they knew nothing 
of his resurrection, and were not looking for it. 
Luke says that when the women told the disciples 
of the resurrection, “their words seemed to them 
(the disciples) as idle tales, and they believed 
them not.” Why did the disciples refuse to be¬ 
lieve? Let John answer: “For as yet they hneiv 
not the Scripture that he must rise again from 
the dead.” To whom is John referring particu¬ 
larly? To Peter and “the disciple whom Jesus 

85 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


loved, ’ 9 and with them all the disciples. Accord¬ 
ing to the Synoptic Gospels, Peter was the prince 
of the discples; according to John, the chief dis¬ 
ciple was the disciple whom Jesns loved—that is 
to say, John. These bosom companions of Jesns 
went and beheld his empty tomb. They were 
amazed to find it empty. Why? Because “they” 
—the foremost disciples who must have under¬ 
stood the mission of their master’s life,—“knew 
not the Scripture that he must rise again from 
the dead.” 

Now let us ask: if the most intimate disciples 
of Christ, those who knew him best and were most 
devoted to him—those who had followed him 
throughout his whole career—if these had never 
heard of his coming resurrection, where did the 
Jewish priests get their suspicion that his dis¬ 
ciples would claim he had risen from the dead? 
Did Christ go and apprise his enemies of a stu¬ 
pendous secret which he kept carefully guarded 

from his friends? The ministrv of Christ lasted for 

* 

one year, or for three—the Gospels are so full of 
contradictions that nothing definite can be learned 
from them—and during all that time, according to 
John, his disciples never heard from him that he 
was to rise from the dead. Yet the priests at 
Jerusalem, whom he had scarcely seen, knew all 
about the Christian doctrine of the resurrection! 
If the disciples were in ignorance as to a proposed 
resurrection, nothing could be more reasonably 

86 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 

certain than that the priests and Pharisees had 
never heard of it; and if these men of the Sanhe¬ 
drin knew nothing of Christ’s teaching that he 
would rise from the dead, they certainly did not 
ask Pilate to set a guard at the tomb. 

I am, of course, aware that, according to Mat¬ 
thew, Jesus had said to the scribes and Pharisees: 
“For as Jonas was three days and three nights 
in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be 
three days and three nights in the heart of the 
earth.” But there are four decisive facts which 
prove the spurious character of this supposed pro¬ 
phecy. These facts are, first, that our knowledge 
of the origin of the Gospels makes it quite unrea¬ 
sonable to rely upon anything they contain as 
being the words of Christ; scondly, that this pro¬ 
phecy was unknown to the disciples, since, as the 
Gospels show, they did not anticipate the resur¬ 
rection; thirdly, that according to the prophecy, 
Christ compared his prospective stay in the earth 
with the myth of Jonas’ sojourn in the whale— 
likened his resurrection to an event that never 
happened; and fourthly, that whereas, according 
to the prophecy, he was to be in the earth three 
days and three nights, the Gospels represent him 
to have been in the grave only one night and a 
few hours alike of the preceding and of the follow¬ 
ing day—that is to say, perhaps thirty hours in 
all. He was buried on Friday evening; his grave 

was empty at sunrise on Sunday morning, if not, 

87 



DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


indeed, according to Matthew, at the end of the 
Sabbath, on Saturday evening. By no possibility, 
therefore, can his stay in the sepulcher be har¬ 
monized with the duration of Jonas ' alleged con¬ 
finement in the whale, since thirty hours or less 
can not be made to cover a period of three days 
and three nights. 

But the sleeping sentries suiciding for priestly 
gold to spread the rumor that a grave was va¬ 
cated, not by a risen God but by a stolen corpse, 
is but one of the fond fancies of ‘‘The Gospel Ac¬ 
cording to St. Matthew. ’ ’ In his exuberant imag¬ 
ination the writer of this pious piece assures us 
that when Christ was crucified many unusual 
phenomena occurred. An earthquake rent the veil 
of the temple in twain; tore rocks asunder, and 
opened the graves of sleeping saints. Thereupon, 
these saints ‘‘ arose,” and standing upright or sit¬ 
ting in their tombs politely waited until Christ 
had risen from the dead, when they left their 
graves, “and went into the holy city, and ap¬ 
peared unto many.” The resurrection of these 
“saints” born from death into life in the shatter¬ 
ing rumble of an earthquake, stands on precisely 
the same authority as the resurrection of Christ. 
So there was not one resurrection only; there 
were many. 

But who were these resurrected saints so de¬ 
ferential to Christ that they remained in their 

open graves from Friday evening till Sunday 

88 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 


morning? How long had they been dead? Did 
they come from their tombs in their putrefying 
flesh? in the bareness of their clattering bones? 
or merely as unsubstantial ghostly forms? Were 
they clothed or nude? And who were the “many” 
to whom they appeared? Did they die again 
soon? If they came from a world of endless joy, 
why did they not leave mankind some record of 
their experience in the realm of the dead? Is it 
not strange that the history of the time is silent 
about Matthew’s earthquake; that the Jews never 
heard of the rending of the sacred temple’s veil; 
and that the appearance in Jerusalem of a band 
of resurrected saints—corpses infused with life 
for exhibition purposes—^either excited the 
slightest commotion, nor drew from the pen of any 
writer of the time even the passing notice of a 
single line? How shall we explain the fact that 
three of the Gospels and the universal voice of 
history have absolutely ignored these stupendous 
miracles? Very simply. They never happened 
except in Matthew’s perfervid imagination! 

Let me say here, that in assuming that the 
Gospels were written by the men whose names 
they bear, I do so merely for convenience. As a 
matter of fact, nobody knows who wrote a line 
of any of the Gospels. It is certain that they were 
not written by the disciples of Christ, or by any¬ 
body acquainted with Christ or his immediate fol¬ 
lowers. They are not the Gospels of Matthew, 

80 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 


Mark, Luke and John; but Gospels “according’’ 
to these persons. These superscriptions did not 
originally belong to the Gospels; they were added 
by the church; and whether Matthew, Mark, 
Luke and John were ever more real than the im¬ 
aginary characters of fiction, nobody will ever 

t 

know. Where these Gospels were written, 
and when, are matters of equal uncertainty. 
There is no evidence whatever to show that 
they were in existence during the first cen¬ 
tury after the supposed events they pretend to 
describe. Emerging from the darkness of early 
Christian times, wholly anonymous in their char¬ 
acter, composed of myths and legends that had 
floated for ages in the fancy of ignorance and 
credulity, selected from a spurious mass of pious 
drivel, declared divine by superstitious priests 
and the votes of quarreling religious councils, em¬ 
bellished with frauds by forging hands in the in¬ 
terest of the church—such were and are the Gos¬ 
pels; and the doctrine that they are the inspired 
word of God is a fond religious fiction that rests 
on no authority whatever but the lies of priests. 
But for convenience I assume that they were 
written by those wdiose names they bear. 

The story of Christ’s resurrection is proved 
to be hopelessly false by the clamoring tongues 
of its many contradictions. Was Christ embalm¬ 
ed before he was buried? John tells us that he 
was. According to John, Joseph of Arimathea 

90 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


and Nicodemus embalmed him with a mixture of 
4 6 myrrh and aloeg of about a hundred pounds 
weight”—enough to embalm a dozen bodies! 
According to Matthew he was not embalmed; and 
Luke’s story plainly shows that there was no em¬ 
balmment. Luke says he was wrapped in linen 
and laid in the sepulcher, and that the women who 
saw him so laid away, returned to prepare spices 
and ointments which they brought to the tomb 
later. But why should the women who, according 
to Luke, saw the body laid away, prepare spices 
to embalm it if they knew: that it was already 
embalmed as elaborately as John describes? Ac¬ 
cording to Luke the women prepared the embalm¬ 
ing spices before the Sabbath began—before sun¬ 
set on Friday; according to Mark they did not 
buy them till after the Sabbath had ended—after 
sunset on Saturday. Surely no one will ever ac¬ 
cuse the Scriptures of monotonous harmony! 

How many women came to the sepulcher? 
John says that one came—Mary Magdalene. 
Matthew says there were two—Mary Magdalene 
and the other Mary. Mark holds that there were 
three—Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of 
James, and Salome. And Luke insists that there 
were at least five—‘‘Mary Magdalene and Joan¬ 
na, and Mary the mother of James, and other 
women that were with them.” Four inspired 
writers, yet not one of them can tell us how many 

women came to the sepulcher of a risen God! 

91 




DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 


At what time did the women come to the tomb ? 
Matthew says they came “in the end of the Sab¬ 
bath’ 9 —at sunset Saturday evening. Mark says 
they came at sunrise on the first day of the week 
<—on Sunday morning. 

When the women came to the tomb they found 
it empty. The stone had been rolled away. The 
grave clothes lay where they had been cast. Jesus 
was no longer in the grave. How long had the 
sepulcher been empty? Nobody knows. No 
writer ventures the information that he was pres¬ 
ent when the resurrection took place; nor does 
any writer say that anybody else ever said that 
he or she was present when it happened. The 
resurrection stands without a single witness. All 
that the Gospels tell us is that when the women 
visited the tomb Jesus was not there. 

When the women came to the sepulcher, whom 
did they meet? Matthew says they met “the 
angel.” Mark says they met “a young man.” 
Luke is certain that they met “two men.” You 
are all wrong, declares John; they met “two 
angels.” Matthew, where was the angel when the 
women met him? “He was sitting on the stone 
outside the sepulcher.” Mark, where was the 
young man? “He was sitting in the sepulcher, 
on the right side. ” What did the women do when 
they were told that Jesus had risen from the 
dead? Answer, Matthew. “They departed quick¬ 
ly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy, 

92 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


and did run to bring his disciples word/ ’ Mark, 
is that what they did? “No; it is not.” Then 
tell us, Mark, what they did? “They went out 
quickly, and fled from the sepulcher, for they 
trembled and were amazed; neither said they 
anything to any man, for they were afraid.” 
These are last words of the Gospel of Mark, as 
it existed in the early centuries. The last twelve 
verses of that Gospel as we have it, are acknowl¬ 
edged by Christian scholars to be a forgery. They 
are not found in the oldest manuscripts of the 
Gospel. Yet I shall make use of these verses, for, 
though forged, they are a part of the Bible. 

Note the last contradiction to which I called 
your attention. Matthew says the women hurried 
from the tomb to tell the disciples of the resurrec¬ 
tion; Mark says they fled in fear, and for that 
reason said nothing about it to any man. Both 
of these statements can not be true. 

As we are considering what is called the evi¬ 
dence for the resurrection, let me tell you some¬ 
thing about evidence in general. It is a rule 
in the logic of evidence that the more unusual, 
the more important, is the fact sought to be estab¬ 
lished, the greater in amount, the more precise 
and conclusive in character, must be the evidence 
required to establish it. An ordinary fact is estab¬ 
lished by ordinary evidence. An unusual fact, a 
fact of vast significance, a fact involving life, 

liberty, reputation, can be established only by a 

93 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


great amount of evidence—evidence of the best 
quality, evidence that will bear scrutiny and an¬ 
alysis. A modest amount of evidence would be 
sufficient to prove that a man in good health rose 
from his bed and dressed himself this morning. 
Why? Because the fact is one of most com¬ 
mon occurrence. But how much evidence do you 
suppose it would require to convince an intelli¬ 
gent court that a man walked down the street on 
his ears, and that he walked faster than a healthy 
athlete who followed him could walk on his well 
developed legs? Such a proposition could not be 
proved at all. And why not? Because the thing 
alleged is unnatural, unreasonable, impossible, 
and, therefore, false! 

A court could more easily believe that a hun¬ 
dred or a thousand witnesses had been deceived 
by optical illusion, or that they were lying, or 
that they were insane, than that a man could 
walk a mile in a few minutes on his ears. 

If, moreover, in trying to establish such an un¬ 
usual proposition, the witnesses did not agree as 
to the facts; if they contradicted one another in 
vital essentials as to time, place and circum¬ 
stances; do you think the court would conclude 
that the thing had actually happened? Now such 
a case would be an exact parallel to the story of 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The thing af¬ 
firmed as a fact is unnatural, unreasonable, and, 

according to every canon of human experience, im- 

94 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 


possible. Therefore, no amount of human testi¬ 
mony can make it credible. If all the writers of 
the New Testament were in absolute agreement 
about it, that would not even tend to make it true; 
and when we find the writers who deal with it con¬ 
tradicting one another vitally, the story proves it¬ 
self to be hopelessly false. 

But there are other contradictions. Let us 
return to them. Where did Mary Magdalene first 
meet Jesus after his resurrection? John says she 
met him at the tomb. Matthew says she met him 
while on her way to tell the disciples. Was she 
alone when she met him? According to John she 
was. According to Matthew she was not. Did 
Mary Magdalene know Jesus when she met him? 
Matthew tells us that she did, that Jesus saluted 
her saying, “All hail!” John assures us that 
she did not know him, that she thought he was 
“the gardener.” Did Mary Magdalene touch 
Jesus when they met? Yes; according to Mat¬ 
thew, she “came and held him by the feet, and 
worshipped him.” No; according to John, Jesus 
said to her: “Touch me not, for I am not yet 
ascended to my Father.” Where did Jesus de¬ 
sire to meet his disciples after the resurrection? 
Matthew declares he gave Mary Magdalene the 
following message: “Go tell my brethren that 
they go into Galilee, and there shall they see 
me.” Luke avers that the words of Jesus to his 

disciples were, “Tarry ye in the city of Jerusa- 

95 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


lem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” 
Where, then, did Jesus first meet his disciples 
after his rise from the dead? Matthew is certain 
that it was on a mountain in Galilee. Luke in¬ 
sists that it w T as in Jerusalem; and John adds 
that it was behind closed doors, where the dis¬ 
ciples had met for fear of the Jews. Galilee is 
at one end of Palestine, and Jerusalem at the 
other. The two points—one in the( North, the 
other in the South—are separated by what was 
then known as a three days’ journey. Now as 
Luke and John declare that Jesus met the dis- 
ciples on the evening of the day of his resurrec¬ 
tion, it is certain he could not have met them in 
so short a time at a point so far away. If Luke 
and John are correct, the meeting did not take 
place in Galilee; if Matthew was well informed, 
it did not occur in Jerusalem. A little less “in¬ 
spiration” and a little more truth might have 
saved the reputation of these writers! 

When the disciples saw Christ, were they 
agreed that it was he ? They were not. Matthew 
tells us that some doubted. Here was a man with 
whom they had been associated for one year—or 
for three years—a man with whose person, whose 
voice, they were entirely familiar, a man whom 
they revered as their teacher and leader, and yet, 
when they saw him, they were not satisfied that 
it was he; they looked on him, talked with him—* 
and doubted! 


96 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 


There are Christians who contend that Christ 
did not rise in his physical body. They believe 
that he arose in spirit form only. But the Gospels 
teach that he arose in his body of flesh and blood. 
According to Lnke he said to his disciples: 66 Be¬ 
hold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself, 
handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and 
bones as ye see me have.” And did he not, ac¬ 
cording to John, invite doubting Thomas to feel 
his several wounds? And does not Luke insist 
that he ate some broiled fish and honey-comb just 
before his ascension? To argue after all this that 
the resurrection was spiritual only is to turn the 
Gospels into a wild burlesque. 

There remains the testimony of St. Paul. 

Paul tells us that Christ’s first appearance was 
to Cephas, that is, Peter. This is contradicted by 
all the Gospels. His second appearance, according 
to Paul, was to the twelve disciples. But there 
were at that time only eleven disciples—Judas 
had hanged himself. Of the treachery and suicide 
of Judas, Paul is utterly ignorant. Paul says that 
Christ’s third appearance was to “above- five 
hundred brethren at once.” But not one of these 
gentlemen has anywhere testified that he saw the 
resurrected Jesus; and of this appearance to the 
multitude the Gospels are wholly silent. To cer¬ 
tify that Paul is quite mistaken here we may 
observe that there were not five hundred Chris¬ 
tian brethren in the world at that time. “After 

97 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


that,” says Paul, “he was seen of James.” The 
Epistle of James knows nothing at all about the 
resurrection; and no appearance to James is men¬ 
tioned in the Gospels. “And last of all,” declares 
Paul, “he was seen of me also.” It may be so, 
Paul, but you are the only witness in your behalf. 
No other writer knows anything whatever about 
any appearance to you. 

The testimony of Paul is in hopeless conflict 
with the four Gospels. While the Gospels quarrel 
with one another, Paul quarrels with them all. 

While the four Gospels teach that Christ rose 
from the tomb in his body of flesh and blood, and 
while two of them declare that with that body he 
ascended into heaven, Paul challenges the Gos¬ 
pels with this positive pronouncement: “flesh and 
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” Very 
well, Paul; but if this is so, will you be so good as 
to explain to us what Christ did with his human 
body when he got beyond the clouds'? After this 
we can easily agree with the Rev. John W. Chad¬ 
wick, who says: “PauPs witness to the resurrec¬ 
tion is the ruin of the argument.’ ’ 

I call your attention to but one more contra¬ 
diction. According to Luke, Christ ascended into 
heaven on the evening of the day on which he rose 
from the tomb; but according to the Acts of the 
Apostles he was with his disciples for forty days 
before his ascension. If there was a memorable 

period in the life of Christ, it certainly was the 

98 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


period that intervened between his resurrection 
and his ascension. The incidents of that period 
must have been indelibly impressed on the minds 
of the disciples. Never could they have forgot¬ 
ten their associations and conversations with him 
who had triumphed over death and the grave. 
His answers to their eager questions as to the 
world he had visited would have become a part 
of the very texture of their souls. But in these 
things the disciples evinced no appreciable con¬ 
cern. They did not question their risen master 
about the life beyond the tomb. Having brought 
him from the grave, their only interest in him 
seems to have been in getting rid of him. They 
even forgot the time he spent with them in those 
wonderful days. Luke remembers only from the 
morning to the evening of the resurrection day; 
while the writer of Acts extends his stay to forty 
days. Both accounts may be 4 ‘inspired,’’ but it 
is certain that both can not be true. 

The ascension of a resurrected God ought to 
have been considered important enough to merit 
a fairly complete description. But Matthew does 
not even mention it. Mark ignored it until the 
forger referred to it in a meager line. John 
passes over it in silence. Luke alone of the dis¬ 
ciples mentions it, and in his hurry to take leave 
of the subject dismisses it with this brief refer¬ 
ence : “And it came to pass, while he blessed them, 

99 


*» ) 

) > > 

> > .1 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


he was parted from them, and carried up into 
heaven. ’ ’ 

Luke did not know that the earth revolves on 
its axis, and that the direction we call “up” is 
continually changing. He did not know that if 
Christ went “up” the direction he took would 
depend precisely upon the time he left, and that 
twelve hours later he would have gone in the op¬ 
posite direction. He did not know that the stars 
are thousands of millions of miles away, and as 
far apart; that it would take Christ, traveling 
with the velocity of a cannon ball thousands of 
ages to reach the nearest of them; that the inter¬ 
stellar spaces are infinitely cold—a thousand 
times colder than ice; and that the telescope, in 
sweeping the immensity of space, would never dis¬ 
cover the fable land of heaven. Astronomy has no 
time to consider seriously the story that any being 
with a human body ascended among the stars. 

The evidence by which Christianity seeks to 
prove that a man or a God rose from the dead is 
infinitely inadequate. What! Prove the truth of 
a story that all human experience denies, that the 
whole universe declares to be false, and prove 
it with the glaring contradictions offered by 
ignorance! 

There is not a court in the civilized world 
that would accept such evidence as is offered for 
the resurrection of Christ as proof against a man 

of bad reputation that he had killed his neigh- 

100 


<■ < 
< c < 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 

bor’s chickens. The evidence is not only worth¬ 
less; it is self destructive. Yet upon such evi¬ 
dence—evidence that crumbles the moment it is 
examined—Christianity, with its threat of end¬ 
less pain, has ever stood and still stands. “If 
Christ be not raised,’’ says Paul, “your faith is 
vain.” Paul stakes the whole belief in immortal¬ 
ity on the resurrection of Christ. How absurd is 
such a doctrine! How childish is the claim that 
whether there is or is not a life beyond the grave, 
depends upon whether a Jewish reformer did or 
did not rise from the dead! 

“But,” some may ask, “if Christ did not rise 
from the dead, how shall we account for the great 
Easter festival which is celebrated by the Chris¬ 
tian world?” Let me explain that the Easter cele¬ 
bration has nothing to do with the resurrection 
of a God. The celebration of Easter was hoary 
with age long before Christ was born. It was an 
old pagan festival in honor of the reanimation, the 
rejuvenation of nature at the vernal season of the 
year. On the twenty-first of March the sun, who, 
as it were, has been buried in the darkness of 
winter, crosses the line of spring, and, as it 
appears, ascends triumphantly into the heavens. 
With the rise of the orb of day, all nature awakens 
and thrills with newness of life—the grass grows 
green; the trees shoot out their leaves; the flowers 
bring forth their buds. It is Nature’s resurrec¬ 
tion. At this time of the resurrection of the great 

101 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


forces of nature—the forces of life and growth— 
all the ancient nations celebrated the resurrection 
of their mythical gods. The Christian church fol¬ 
lowed the custom of the pagan world; she made 
her God to rise when the other gods had risen. 

Nor is the Easter egg a Christian institution. 
The egg has ever been regarded as the symbol of 
life; and at the Easter season, the ancients ate 
eggs and presented eggs to their friends. The 
very name of this festival is of pagan origin. 
Oestra was a Norse goddess, and was worshipped 
as the devoted patroness of the renewing life of 
spring. The name of this pagan goddess was 
borrowed, and became a conjuring word in the 
vocabulary of Christianity. 

There is still another argument. If it were 
really true that Christ rose from the dead, the 
world would know the exact date on which the 
resurrection took place. The date of a fact of 
such momentous importance— a fact that hurled 
defiance in the face of Nature, and conquered the 
forces of the world—could never be forgotten 
t>y the mind of man. But the Christian church 
has never known, nor does she now know, the 
date of Christ’s resurrection. The resurrection is 
celebrated, not on the anniversary of any partic¬ 
ular day, but in accordance with astronomical 
facts. Easter Sunday is always the first Sunday 
after the first full moon after the twenty-first of 

March—the spring equinox. The celebration of 

102 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD ? 

the resurrection is therefore a festival of chang¬ 
ing time—it may occur as early as the twenty- 
second of March, or as late as the twenty-fifth of 
April. Could anything be more curious than this 
manner of celebrating an historical event? Why 
should the resurrection of Christ, if an actual 
occurrence, depend upon the course of the sun 
and the phases of the moon? Why should it be 
celebrated in March one year, and in April the 
next? Simply because the resurrection story is 
only a pagan fable retold in Christian form. 

Nobody knows that Christ ever lived. If he 
was crucified, nobody knows that he was dead 
when he was buried. Nobody saw him rise from 
the tomb. Nobody knows who wrote the resur¬ 
rection stories; but any thinking person who will 
examine these stories will discover that they are 
myths. 

Let us face the truth with candor. Christ did 
not rise from the dead; but the intellect of men 
is rising to-day from ages of confinement in the 
grave of superstition. There was no resurrection 
of Deity on the fabled Easter morn; but human¬ 
ity is being resurrected to-day from the prison¬ 
ing hold of a crumbling creed. God did not burst 
the bonds of the tomb; but man is riving the fet¬ 
ters with which religion has enthralled him, and 
standing in the light of day, determined to be 
free. Superstition’s gloomy night that palled the 

world with hate and fear is passed. The sun of 

103 


DID JESUS CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? 


reason floods the world with the rosy dawn of a 
hopeful day. The promise of the future lures the 
steps of those with eyes to see the light. The 
priest and the preacher are falling to the rear in 
the great forward march of mankind. Humanity 
is rapidly recovering from the Bible’s blinding 
blight. Honest souls no longer tremble at the 
thought of the bigot’s hell. The mirage of heaven 
that once charmed the human mind and made of 
earth a desert, is ceasing to sap the energy of the 
race. Unchained, unafraid, thoughtful, erect, 
free!—caring for the concerns of this world alone 
—the men and women who have reached their in¬ 
tellectual maturity—who no longer feel the need 
of the pious pap of priests—who prefer healthy 
truth to sickly lies—have come to know that this 
world, and not another, is our home; that this 
world can be greatly enriched and improved, that 
the joys of heaven, plucked from hope, can be 
realized in this life. So these forward-looking 
souls are striving to enlarge the realm of free¬ 
dom in thought and toil; to broaden the sphere 
of justice; to banish the wolf of want; to bring 
to all a needful measure of the means of life; to 
diffuse knowledge; to banish disease and war and 
crime; to encourage the cultivation of the beauti¬ 
ful; to do the best that can be done to make this 
world a fit abode for mankind. This is the true 
resurrection—the resurrection of humanity to a 
better life.*\ 


104 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS 
MORAL GUIDE 

Let me begin this address, in which I hope to 
show that the Bible is a dangerous moral guide, 
by eliminating from the Scriptures the notion of 
divine authority. Although millions believe that 
the Bible is the word of God, that belief is sup¬ 
ported by no evidence whatever. For nobody 
knows that a God exists; indeed, imagination 
fails to conceive of an infinite being; and even 
though it could be demonstrated that there is a 
God, that fact would not in the remotest manner 
tend to support the claim that he inspired the 
Bible. From this it follows that the fact that the 
Bible has much to say about God is not evidence 
that it is his word. The fact that some Jews 
living in Palestine two thousand years ago put 
their thoughts of God in writing does not make 
an unthinkable God responsible for what they 
wrote. Millions of men have talked of God and 
written of him without any authority but their 
own. The world has many sacred books and the 
believers in each of these assert that theirs and 
theirs alone is the true revelation of the Deity. 

It is certain that all but one of these holy Bibles 

105 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


must be of human origin; and why except the 
other? In the nature of things there can be no 
sound reason for the belief that the stupidities 
and superstitions, the cruelties and crimes of a 
collection of ancient Jewish writings are the in¬ 
spired word of an infinite God. 

There is another thing. If the Bible were the 
most nearly perfect of any book in the world, that 
fact would not prove its divine origin. If the pur¬ 
ity of its moral precepts, the justice of its laws, 
the accuracy of its historical teachings, the ex¬ 
actness of its science, the grandeur of its philos¬ 
ophy, the beauty of its poetry, entitled it to claim 
the foremost place among the writings of human¬ 
ity—a standard of excellence which the Bible 
utterly fails to attain—the evidence that it is the 
word of God would still be wanting. The great 
poems and dramas, the grand orations, the wond¬ 
rous works of science, philosophy and fiction, are 
not inspired of God. They are but the noble pro¬ 
ductions of the human intellect—the creations of 

\ 

genius—the splendid expressions of what man 
has thought and felt and hoped. If we judge the 
Bible as we judge other books the phanton of in¬ 
spiration will vanish from the world. 

But why talk about the inspiration of the Bible 
until we know whether or not that book is true? 
And if the Scriptures are true what need is there 
of inspiration? How could inspiration help the 

truth? If two and two are four without inspira- 

106 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 

tion, could any amount of inspiration make their 
added value five? Is it not obvious that if the 
Bible is true it is not inspired, since inspiration 
could not increase the value of truth? On the 
other hand, if the Bible is not true it can not be 
inspired, for no amount of inspiration could im¬ 
prove its original falsity. An inspired falsehood 
would be a falsehood still! 

The truth is that the doctrine of inspiration 
is a pious fiction that was invented by the Jewish 
and Christian priests for the purpose of winning 
for their fanciful religious claims an acceptance 
and a reverence which they never would have 
commanded without that alleged authority of 
God. 

That the Bible is not inspired, that it is not 
true, is proved by many facts,—by the falsity of 
its science, by the foolishness of its philosophy, by 
the wild exaggerations of its history, and by the 
immoral character of many of its teachings. I 
am going to examine some of the moral teachings 
of the Bible in the light of reason and humanity. 

In this world man must have truth. Truth is 
the priceless jewel of the soul. It is the enduring 
glory of thought that leads the destinies of the 
world from the throne of man’s inquiring brain. 
The whole round of human well-being, all correct 
human relations, rest on truth. Without truth 
there could be no civilization. To seek the truth 
is one of the noblest occupations in which man 

107! 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


can engage. To proclaim it to the world, how¬ 
ever unpopular it may be, is one of the most 
splendid of virtues. On the contrary, to uphold 
and spread falsehood is immoral. The Bible up¬ 
holds falsehood; therefore the Bible is a danger¬ 
ous moral guide. In Jeremiah, chapter 20, verse 
7, Jeremiah complains: “0 Lord, thou hast de¬ 
ceived me, and I was deceived.” In chapter 4, 
verse 10, the prophet again charges God with 
deception: “Ah, Lord God! surely thou has 
greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem.” 
The imputation against God is stronger in the 
ninth verse of the fourteenth chapter of Exekiel: 
“And if the prophet be deceived when he hath 
spoken a thing, I, the Lord, have deceived that 
prophet.’ ’ 

What strange assertions and avowals to find 
in a so-called inspired book! Think of an infinite 
God who would stoop to deceive his children! Is 
there a thoughtful Christian who can really be¬ 
lieve that a God of truth inspired these words 
found in the twenty-second chapter of I. Kings: 
“And the Lord said, who shall persuade Ahab, 
that he may go up and fall at Ramotli-gilead? 
And one said on this manner, and another said on 
that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and 
stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade 
him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? 
and he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying 

spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he 

108 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


said, Thou shall persuade him and prevail also: 
go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the 
Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all 
these thy phopliets, and the Lord hath spoken evil 
concerning thee! ’ ’ 

Is this the language of inspiration? Is there a 
God who desires us to believe that he once adver¬ 
tised for a lying spirit, and that he sent the liar 
to deceive the prophets of a petty king? Surely 
not! 

Nor is the New Testament a spotless cham¬ 
pion of veracity. In the third chapter of Romans, 
Paul offers this astounding justification of false¬ 
hood: “For if the truth of God hath more 
abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet 
am I also judged as a sinner V 9 According to 
Paul, a man is not a sinner if he lies for the glory 
of God. In this matter the apostle to the Gentiles 
has the hearty concurrence of many modern 
preachers. In II. Corinthians, 12, 16, Paul 
writes: “Being crafty, I caught you with guile” 
—that is to say deceit, falsehood. 

A book that upholds lying in this way, sets 
the example of falsehood by justifying it, and so 
makes itself the enemy of truth.” Hence, as the 
Bible condones the use of falsehood in teaching, 
it is a dangerous moral guide. 

The world needs honesty no less than truth. 
Without honest dealing there can be no real mo¬ 
rality. The cheat, the thief, is the despoiler of 

109 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


his fellow-men. Notwithstanding this, the Bible 
upholds both cheating and stealing. What teach¬ 
ing could be more pernicious than the following 
advice to the rogue? (Deut. 14, 21): “Ye shall 
not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou shalt 
give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that 
he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an 
alien.’’ Could anything be more perverse than 
the permission to sell to the alien—any foreign 
born, unnaturalized resident—for food, the flesh 
of an animal that died of itself? Such an animal 
might have died of disease and its flesh might, 
therefore, be poisonous. Those who wrote the 
book of Deuteronomy were aware of this. They 
felt their stomachs turning over at the thought 
of eating carrion. Such flesh, however, must not 
be lost. It must be eaten by somebody—prefer¬ 
ably somebody who will buy it. Therefore they 
enjoined the Jewish people to give this diseased 
and poisonous flesh to the strangers dwelling 
among them, or to sell it to aliens. And may we 
not conlude that it would be asking too much 
to expect an enterprising Jew to give away what 
he might sell? 

How would you like, Mr. Christian, to have a 
butcher sell to you for use on your table, the flesh 
of a creature that died of itself? Your wife has 
been very ill. The fever, at last, begins to wane. 
Delirium gives place to rational consciousness. 

The heart again beats with high hope. The eyes 

no 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


resume their former brightness. The pallid cheek 
is once more illumined with the divine smile of 
a good woman’s love. Your wife, the mother of 
your children, is convalescent. The physician in 
attendance prescribes beef-broth. Now comes a 
butcher to your door with a large cut of beef 
from an ox that died of itself—died of disease. 
For this reason he would not have his family eat 
it, but being a devout believer in the inspiration 
of the Bible, he is perfectly willing to obey the 
sacred word and sell the poisonous flesh to you, 
in order that your delicate wife may have beef- 
broth. What would you think, Mr. Christian, of 
a butcher who would commit such a crime against 
yourself and the woman you love? Would you 
not be in favor of teaching him a lesson in com¬ 
mon humanity with the full penalty of the law? 

To sell for food the flesh of a creature that 
died of itself is, in all civilized countries, a crime 
punishable with a fine, or imprisonment, or both. 
But why punish a man for obeying the injunc¬ 
tion of the Bible? Because, in this respect, to 
practice the precept of the Scriptures is to com¬ 
mit a crime. The Bible is a dangerous moral 
guide. 

I cheerfully admit that the Bible says, “Thou 
shalt not steal.” At the same time it must be 
acknowledged that that book, without which, so 
the dear clergy contend, there would be no hon¬ 
esty in the world, is loud in its praise of stealing. 

ill 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


In the third chapter of Exodus, this command to 
steal is put into the mouth of God: “And I will 
give this people favor in the sight of the Egyp¬ 
tians : and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, 
ye shall not go empty: But every woman shall 
borrow of her neighbor, and of her that so- 
journeth in the house, jewels of silver, and jewels 
of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them up¬ 
on your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye 
shall spoil the Egyptians.” The twelfth chapter 
says: “And the children of Israel did according 
to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the 
Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, 
and raiment: And the Lord gave the people favor 
in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent 
unto them such things as they required. And 
they spoiled the Egyptians .” 

To steal under the pretext of borrowing is the 
meanest kind of thievery. It is theft made worse 
by cowardice. Moreover, this kind of theft is 
impossible without the use of falsehood—the 
promise that the goods will be returned. Yet the 
Bible upholds this kind of theft by claiming for 
it the sanction and command of God! 

To defend these passages as the clergy some¬ 
times do, by pleading that the Egyptians had 
oppressed the Israelites, does not help the matter 
in the least. For it was Pharaoh who had been 
the task-master over the Jews, and the Egyp¬ 
tians who were robbed were the common people. 

112 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 

And even though the Egyptians did owe the Jews 
something, a real God, if he were honest, would 
enable his people to collect their dues without 
resorting to falsehood and theft. 

Over and over again in the Old Testament, the 
Jews are commanded to steal the property of 
their neighbors. Not only that: these robberies 
are represented as being committed with the 
direct assistance of God. And in some instances, 
as in the case of the Midianites, the story of 
whose massacre is related in the thirty-first 
chapter of Numbers, God, as one of the bandits, 
is allotted a share of the spoil! 

In all these recitals of robbery the Bible, by 
ranging its authority on the side of the thief, 
shows itself to be a dangerous moral guide. 

A fearful record of misery and suffering is 
the history of human slavery. From the dawn 
of civilization until modern times this colossal 
crime trampled the face of man in the dust of 
degradation. Thousands of years before a line 
ofi the- Bible was written, every nation in the 
world had its slaves. In the field, the forest, the 
mine, the canal, on pyramid and temple, on land 
and sea, in war and peace, the poor slave wore 
his life away in the service of his master, con¬ 
scious that his lot would be the fate of his genera¬ 
tions yet unborn. 

Slavery outraged the rights of man. It denied 

the blessing of liberty, thei joy of freedom, to 

113 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


many millions of human beings. It denied to 
man the right to own property, to build himself 
a home, to take an active interest in the world 
as the equal of his fellow, to enjoy the drama 
of life with the fullest appreciation of the free. 
It invaded the sacred sanctuary of love, robbed 
man of the right to choose his wife, and forced 
the women to marry the man her master chose 
for her. It destroyed family life by separating 
husbands and wives; and with a hand more ruth¬ 
less still it tore the child from the frantic 
mother’s breast and sold it at a distance where 
she might never again look into its eyes. All 
the natural relations of life were reversed, des¬ 
pised, destroyed by the infamous slave code. 
The master owned the slave. Body and soul must 
submit to the dictates of the despot’s will. The 
slave was a creature held for the profit of his 
master. He was bred and bought and sold, fed 
and starved and worked and whipped, as his lord 
and master chose. 

It is true that in the Roman Empire, before 
the introduction of Christianity, the position of 
the slave had been, for some time, improving. 
Numerous laws were enacted in his favor. Many 
slaves were highly educated. Some even were 
doctors, authors and teachers. Manumissions 
were common. The great pagan empire was 
marching towards the light of freedom. Then 

Christianity came. Darkness settled upon the 

114 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


world. In the course of a thousand years 
slavery passed into serfdom. Then came the 
African slave trade among the Christian nations 
—the most frightful form slavery has ever as¬ 
sumed. 

In the United States it was a crime to educate 
the slave. The world of intellect was not for 
him. The light of knowledge must not penetrate 
his brain. The law denied him cultured thought 
even as it denied him freedom. He was the mud¬ 
sill of society and his mind must be buried in 
darkness beneath the weight of grievous social 
abuses. The American slave could not testify 
against his master in the courts. If the master 
committed murder in the presence of his slaves, 
they could not be witnesses against him. 

Such were slavery’s crimes against humanity. 
Such was the system of spoilation which, begin¬ 
ning in the morning of civilization, flourished 
with various changes throughout the centuries of 
history, polluting and destroying the happiness 
of many millions of the sons and daughters of 
men. 

Before the Bible was written no divine author¬ 
ity could be pleaded in defence of slavery. All 
the laws and customs that bound the bondman to 
his chains were born in the minds of men. But 
now the Scriptures are about to be written. A di¬ 
vine regime—so we should fondly understand— 

is about to dawn upon the world. A God of jus- 

115 



THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


tice and love is going to dispel the darkness of 
earth with the light of heaven—is going to teach 
equality and brotherhood in an inspired moral 
code. He has heard the plea of the tortured slave, 
the awful stroke of the cutting lash, the master’s 
cruel curse. The moan of the mother has reached 
his ears, and the cries of the little one sold from 
the breast of love, have touched his heart with 
pain. The infinite heart at last o’erflows. The 
divine message comes to earth. We read it with 
eagerness and care. And what do we find this 
book to say? Does it sound a clarion call to free¬ 
dom? Does it bid the chains of slavery break 
and fall? Does it command the master to stay 
his lash?—the slave to stand erect and free? 
Does it proclaim in burning words that all men 
are entitled to freedom? No! No indeed! To 
all these questions the Bible gives answers that 
assassinate our hopes. Its smile is for the op¬ 
pressor. For freedom it has but a frown. Its 
greeting to the slave is a chain. 

In the twenty-first chapter of Exodus, the 
Bible, the much belauded charter of liberty, 
reads the following advice to the slave holder: 
“If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he 
shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out 
free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he 
shall go out by himself; if he were married, then 
his wife shall go with him. If his master have 

given him a wife, and she have born him sons 

116 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


or daughters, the wife and her children shall be 
her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. 
And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my 
master, my wife, and my children; I will not go 
out free: Then his master shall bring him unto 
the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or 
unto the door post; and his master shall bore his 
ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him 
forever.” In this law the buying of human be¬ 
ings is recognized. Slavery is not only recog¬ 
nized but regulated. Nor is it the slavery of 
negroes with which we are here concerned. It is 
the slavery of white men and white women—the 
slavery of Jews. This inspired statute allows the 
slave to recover his freedom after six years of 
servitude on one condition only—he must desert 
his wife and children! He may purchase his 
freedom solely at the expense of separation from 
his loved ones. To remain with his wife and babes 
he must remain in slavery, and not only that: he 
must submit to the barbaric practice of having 
his ear bored through with an awl. Thus marked 
because he prefers his home to liberty, he is to 
be a slave forever. Yet we are confidently as¬ 
sured that the blessed volume is the friend of 
freedom, and love, and home. 

The Bible allows the master to kill his slave 
and go unpunished. In the chapter above quoted, 
we read: “If a man smite his servant or his maid 

with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall 

117 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he con¬ 
tinue a day or two, he shall not be punished; for 
he is his money. ” Only when the slave falls 
dead beneath the blow shall the master be pun¬ 
ished. But let the blow be equally fatal, let the 
man or the woman linger in agony and die the 
next day, and the murderous master must not be 
punished. Why? The reason given is a curious 
one:—the slave is his master’s money! Who but 
an inspired writer could have framed such an 
ingenious justification of murder?—the slave may 
be killed with impunity if the mortal blow is not 
fatal immediately because he is his master’s 
money! 

The New Testament supports the Old in bind¬ 
ing the shackles to the limbs of the slave. In 
Ephesians 6:5, Paul says: ‘ ‘ Servants, be obed¬ 
ient to them that are your masters according to 
the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness 
of your heart, as unto Christ.” And in Timothy 
6: 1, he writes: “Let as many servants as are 
under the yoke count their own masters worthy 
of all honor, that the name of God and his doc¬ 
trine be not blasphemed.” The slave is com¬ 
manded to cringe and cower and worship at his 
master’s feet. He is told to hug his chains, to 
prize his degradation, to look up to his master 
and obey him as though he were the very Christ. 
The master, whether kind or cruel, is worthy of 

all honor, and must be obeyed lest the doctrine of 

118 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


God be blasphemed! These rules and regulations 
regarding slavery, these commands to men and 
women to fall upon their knees in obedience to 
the despot’s will, strike at the root of liberty and 
encourage the oppressor to oppress. These pre¬ 
cepts are the language of cowardice. They would 
sap self reliance and destroy independence. 
They swear allegiance to stagnant injustice and 
denounce the progress of free men as rebellion. 
These words flatter the tyrant, but to his victim 
they are a message of despair and death. On 
the authority of these words Christian masters 
felt themselves justified in holding slaves. In¬ 
numerable theologians argued from them that 
slavery was a divine institution. The attitude of 
these pious gentlemen on the question of slavery 
was scornfully expressed by Whittier, in “Cleri¬ 
cal Oppressors 

“Just God—and these are they 

Who minister at thine altar, God of right! 

Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay 
On Israel’s ark of light! 

What! Preach and kidnap men? 

Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor? 

Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then 
Bolt hard the captive’s door? 

What! Servants of thy own 

Merciful son, who came to seek and save 

The homeless and the outcast—fettering down 
The tasked and plundered slave! 

119 



THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


Pilate and Herod friends! 

Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine! 
Just God and holy! is that church which lends 
Strength to the spoiler, thine?” 


When the challenge of the abolitionists pro¬ 
voked the cry that the Bible favors slavery, the 
answer rang forth clear and true, “So much the 
worse for the Bible.’’ Slavery was abolished in 
spite of the Bible, in spite of the church, in spite 
of all the ministerial defences of the traffic in 
human flesh and of all the clerical denunciations 
of the friends of freedom. The Bible was and is 
the upholder of slavery. Therefore, the Bible is 
a dangerous moral guide. 

Every thoughtful person, not a bigot, knows 
that religious persecution is an outrage and a 
crime. If a man has any rights at all, he certainly 
has the right to follow the light of conscience in 
religious matters. But the Bible will not admit 
this. Narrow, bigoted, intolerant, that book pre¬ 
scribes the death penalty for any person who 
dares to suggest a change of religious belief. 
Could anything be more cruel than these words 
from the thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy? 
“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or 
thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of 
thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine 
own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, ‘Let 
us go and serve other gods.’ . . . Thou shalt not 

consent unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither 

120 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


shalt thine eye pity him, neither shalt thon spare, 
neither shalt thon conceal him. But thou shalt 
surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon 
him to put him to death, and afterwards the 
hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him 
with stones that he die.” 

Such is the religious liberty of the Bible. If 
your nearest and dearest relative asks you to join 
him in the worship of any God but Jehovah, it is 
your duty to assist in putting him to death. If 
your son suggests the worship of another God, he 
must cease to be the object of your tender regard. 
Your heart of love for him must turn to stone. 
To shield, to pity, to love him would be rebellion 
against Jehovah. Your thoughtful son must die. 
However brave, and kind and true, his life must 
be destroyed. In obedience to the Bible you must 
throw the first stone. With the help of your 
neighbors you must murder your innocent child. 
Such is the religious liberty of the Bible. 

And what shall we say of the awful intoler¬ 
ance that would visit death upon the worshipper 
of the objects of nature? The seventeenth chap¬ 
ter of Deuteronomy declares: “If there be found 
among you within any of thy gates . . . man or 
woman that hath . . . gone and served other 
gods and worshipped them, either the sun, or 
moon, or any of the host of heaven. . . Then shalt 
thou bring forth that man or that woman, which 

have committed that wicked thing unto thy gates 

121 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


. . ♦ and tliou shalt stone them with stones till 
they die.” Think of regarding as a safe moral 
guide a book that would deliver a woman to the 
executioner for worshipping the sun! Millions 
of the noblest men and women have lived and 
died as sun worshippers. Sun worship appears 
to be, indeed, the most natural of all religions. 
But according to the Bible the sun worshipper 
has no right to live. That book decrees that who¬ 
ever falls upon his knees in honor of the orb of 
day must die a martyr to his faith. 

Suppose you were a devout believer in the 
Bible, and suppose that while walking through a 
beautiful garden with your wife on a day when 
all nature was made glad by the wooing warmth 
and light of the cheering sun, your wife should 
say to you, with happy enthusiasm and convic¬ 
tion: 0 What a glorious God is the sun! He 
wakes from slumber at early morn while dark¬ 
ness sits upon the throne of night. He sends his 
potent rays abroad and floods the world with 
wondrous light. He invigorates and cheers all 
things that live, and beneath his warm and magic 
touch things rise as from the dead and throb and 
thrill with life. He clothes the hillside, field and 
valley with trees and vines and grasses that bear 
in rich profusion delicious fruits and foods. As 
with an artist’s hand, he paints the gardens and 
the fields in all the hues and colors of flowers in 

bloom. While lovers woo upon the banks of 

122 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


pleasant streams, tlie peaceful waters sparkle 
beneath his warm bright rays, and while the hap¬ 
py bird upon the branch pours forth his soul in 
joyous song, the placid lake reflects the image of 
the source of light. From the ocean’s waves the 
sun draws vapor to the clouds; in clouds the 
vapor drifts’ about and later falls to earth in 
rain; and now appears the sun again, whose smile 
upon the water drops still lingering in the air, 
illuminates the sky with the enchanting rainbow. 
If the sun should vanish from the sky, all life 
would disappear from earth. We are the child¬ 
ren of the sun. All life and love, all joy and 
hope, come from the source of light. I love the 
sun! To me he is the greatest of the Gods. Every 
day I fall upon my knees and worship him as the 
divine father and universal king. 

Suppose your wife should thus solemnly con¬ 
fess herself to you a worshipper of the sun. As 
a believer in the Bible you can no longer shield 
and love her. You must disown her as your wife. 
All the years of her devotion to your joy you 
must forget. Her plea for sympathy you must 
ignore. She has worshipped the sun. That is 
enough. The Bible cries for vengeance; its in¬ 
tolerant God must be obeyed; you must help to 
kill your loving wife, whose last word breathes 
forgiveness on your cruel act. Such is the re¬ 
ligious liberty of the Bible. That book enslaves 

not only the body, it enslaves also the mind. It 

123 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


makes death the penalty for religious progress. 

But some may say that the New Testament is 
in favor of religious liberty. The truth is that 
the New Testament is as intolerant as the Old. 
In Galatians, 1: 9, Paul declares: “If any man 
preach any other gospel unto you than that ye 
have received, let him be accursed.’’ In the fifth 
chapter of the same Epistle the cursing apostle 
approves of death to the foes of his faith: “I 
would they were even cut off which trouble you.’ 9 
According to Luke 19: 27, Jesus gave utterance 
to this frighful command: “But those mine ene¬ 
mies, which would not that I should reign over 
them, bring hither, and slay them before me.” 
And the most terrible lines in all literature— 
lines that have surpassed all others in causing 
human suffering—are found in the last chapter 
of the Gospel of Mark: “He that believeth and 
is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth 
not shall be damned.” 

By the word “damned” the church has always 
understood eternal torment in the fires of another 
world. Christianity has ever been, and is, a re¬ 
ligion of belief. According to that religion, he 
who holds the right belief will enjoy eternal hap¬ 
piness in heaven, but he who doubts or denies 
the Christian creed will endure the agonies of 
hell through all the future’s never ending years. 
For many centuries, this bigoted and heartless 

faith deformed and brutalized the intellect of the 

124 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


world. The church was eager to save the souls 
of men. There was no salvation except by Chris¬ 
tian faith. The duty of the church was clear: 
she must force all men to believe. It was a work 
of mercy, as she thought, to torture the body here 
to save the soul hereafter. What were a few 
moments of pain inflicted on an unbeliever here, 
thought she, if by that suffering he could be in¬ 
duced to change his mind, to become converted, 
and to escape the agonies of hell through the 
gracious forgiveness of Christ. The church knew 
that in the New Testament, as in the Old, the 
believer is commanded to persecute in the name 
of the faith. The devout Christian was he who 
willingly obeyed the voice of his inspired book. 
Accordingly, when the church rose to power in 
the Roman Empire she entered upon the terrible 
task of forcing her cruel creed upon the world. 
Openly, boldly, without remorse, she hunted down 
those whom she regarded as her foes. After 
many centuries stained with blood and wet with 
tears, the church divided on points of doctrine; 
but the Reformers had no quarrel with Rome on 
the ground of persecution. They were persecu¬ 
tors too. In the creeds of the early Protestant. 
churches persecution for opinion’s sake was a 
distinct and definite doctrine of faith and practice. 
Under the Lutherans and the Calvinists, under the 
Church of England as under the Church of Rome, 

the awful work of cruelty continued, until the 

125 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


progress of knowledge, the advancement of 
science, and the growing power of scepticism 
wrenched the red hand of superstition from the 
throat of an outraged world! 

No power of imagination can conceive of the 
pain that has been inflicted on innocent men and 
women because the Bible is a persecuting book 

r- 

and because therefore Christianity has ever been 
a persecuting faith. Some were locked in dun¬ 
geons dark and deep and left to slowly die of 
hunger and of thirst. Some were sewn in bags 
and thrown to the hungry waves. Some were 
tied to stakes on the seashore to be drowned by 
the slowly rising tide. Some were stretched on 
racks of torture until their joints were torn 
apart. Some were flayed and buried alive. Some 
had their eyes extinguished, their ears and arms 
cut off, their tongues removed with pincers, their 
legs crushed and broken in iron boots. Some 
were strangled. Myriads were hanged. Enough 
to populate a world were burned alive; and no 
historian can compute how many millions fell on 
fanatic fields in fierce religious wars. 

For ages the church exhausted her ingenuity 
in devising ways and means of torture! The 
noblest and the best fell victims to her mad and 
solemn zeal. The scientist and the philosopher, 
the scholar and the statesman, the judge, the 
priest, the preacher, old men and women with 
wrinkled brows and whitened hair, brave youths 

126 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


and loving maidens, even children of tender 
years—all those who doubted or departed from 
the faith were done to death by the Christian 
Church. The Bible was her text-book. Purity 
of faith here and salvation hereafter was her 
aim. And thus through all the centuries of her 
power she destroyed the life and happiness of 
man on the authority of her claims that the Bible 
is divine. It is the verdict of history that the 
Christian Church has caused more unmerited 
suffering, and shed more innocent blood than any 
other institution the world has known. Back of all 
this agony—back of all the martyred millions, the 
ruined homes, the blasted reputations, the deser¬ 
ted friends—back of all the cruel carnage of re¬ 
ligious persecution—stands the authority of the 
Bible! Following the Bible has led to the mar¬ 
tyrdom of humanity. Therefore, the Bible is a 
dangerous moral guide. 

What could be more revolting, more completely 
suffused with horror, than cannibalism? Yet the 
Bible upholds the eating of human flesh—the 
flesh, not of strangers, but of your own loved 
ones. In the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuter¬ 
onomy may be read these infamous words: “And 
thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the 
flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the 
Lord thy God hath given thee. . . The man that 
is tender among you,” shall eat “the flesh of his 

children. . . The tender and delicate woman 

127 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


among you . . . her eye shall be evil toward . . . 
her children which she shall bear: for she shall 
eat them.” Behold the awful spectacle. Tender 
fathers and delicate mothers eating the flesh of 
their dimpled babes! The Bible is in earnest 
when it tells parents that they shall eat the flesh 
of their children. How fiendish are these words 
from the ninth verse of the nineteenth chapter of 
Jeremiah: “Atid I will cause them to eat the 
flesh of their sons, and the flesh of their daugh¬ 
ters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of 
his friend.’ ’ Christians tell us that the men who 
wrote these frightful passages were inspired. 
But can we be certain that they were not insane? 
At any rate it must be acknowledged that a book 
containing such monstrous teachings is a danger¬ 
ous moral guide. 

Since the Bible upholds so many other crimes, 
we need not be surprised to find that it advocates 
murder. In the thirty-second chapter of Exodus 
occurs this command: 16 Thus saith the Lord God 
of Israel, put every man his sword by his side, 
and go in and out from gate to gate throughout 
the camp, and slay every man his brother, and 
every man his companion, and every man his 
neighbor.’’ The order was obeyed, and, accord¬ 
ing to the story, three thousand men were killed. 
For what? Because some ignorant wretches had 
worshipped a golden calf! 

Listen to this perfectly fiendish command, 

128 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 

from the fifteenth chapter of I. Samuel: “Now 
go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that 
they have, and spare them not; but slay both man 
and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, 
camel and ass.” How humane! Fancy the no¬ 
bility of a soldier who would butcher women and 
babes! Think of a God issuing an order to have 
infants and sucklings carved with the sword! 
Even the cattle must be wantonly destroyed. 

Among his many curses, Jeremiah wrote this 
in chapter forty-eight, verse ten: “Cursed be he 
that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and 
cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from 
blood.” What a saintly character Jeremiah was! 

Here is a gem from the pen of the raving 
Ezekiel, who ate Old Testament manuscripts at 
the command of God: “Slay utterly old and 
young, both maids, and little children and wo¬ 
men.” (Ezekiel 9:6). Only a madman or a fiend 
could have uttered such inhuman words. 

According to the thirty-first chapter of Num¬ 
bers it was by command of God that a Jewish 
army made war on the Midianites. All the men of 
the nation were slain in battle while engaged in de¬ 
fending their lives and their homes. The women 
and children were taken captive; and when their 
property had been stolen, their castles and their 
cities burned, and their country left in desolation, 
they were brought to the camp where Moses 

stood. On seeing these unfortunate women, the 

129 



THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


meek one flew into a passion of rage. “Have ye 
saved all the women alive ? ’ 9 he angrily exclaimed. 
Then this man of God gave his soldiers these in¬ 
famous instructions: “Now therefore kill every 
male among the little ones, and kill every woman. 
. . . But all the women children . . . keep alive 
for yourselves.” Never fell more heartless words 
from human lips. 

In imagination I can see those woeful mothers, 
their eyes streaming with tears, their hearts 
heavy with pain, lovingly holding their baby boys 
in their trembling arms and pleading that their 
lives may be spared. Their husbands have been 
slain, but they want to live for their little ones. 
“If you will kill us,” they cry, “do spare our 
babes!” But their plaintive wails find no lodge¬ 
ment in the barbarian soldiers’ breasts. Their 
hearts are pierced with cruel spears; the air is 
rent with unheeded screams; and in a little while 
all the mothers and baby boys of a nation lie 
where they were massacred in a foreign land. 

But a worse fate awaited the maidens who had 
seen their mothers fall. These, thirty-two thous¬ 
and in number, were distributed amongst the 
soldiers who had murdered their people, and the 
barbarians who had remained at home. Thus was 
the servitude of loathsome lust forced on these 
girls by the assassins of their loved ones. And this 
measureless infamy is said to have been com¬ 
mitted by command of God! 

130 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


The Lord promised Joshua that he would be 
with him. With this encouragement Joshua set 
about to conquer the promised land. Blood flowed 
in rivers. The helpless fell before the sword 
like withered leaves before a driving gale; and 
when all that had lived were dead, the following 
account of the campaign of extermination was 
written in the fortieth verse of the tenth chapter 
of the book of Joshua: “So Josnua smote all the 
country of the hills, and of the south, and of the 
vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he 
left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that 
breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded. ’ ’ 

Read the awful book of Joshua. In it you will 
see an army, as ignorant and as brutal as ever 
drew the sword of war, advancing from city unto 
city where people dwell in peace enjoying liberty 
and love. You will see men and women of every 
age and rank falling before the strokes of death. 
Now the prattling babe smiles on the uplifted 
sword, and now he feels it running through his 
baby heart. All around you are the dying and 
the dead, and all that breathe must die. You 
hear the cries of anguish as you walk in human 
blood, and raising your eyes, you see beyond the 
fires of a burning town. Yet the Bible assures 
us that this wholesale extermination of nation 
after nation was in obedience to instructions 
given by God! 

The world regards the Kaiser, and justly, as 

131 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


infamous. History will brand him as one of the 
cold blooded, calculating monsters of the human 
race. But the Kaiser has been an assiduous stud¬ 
ent of the Bible. He has quoted it more fre¬ 
quently than all the monarchs of his time put 
together. He is thoroughly familiar with its gos¬ 
pel of force, its glorification of war. The name 
of its War God has ever been on his lips. In no 
other book could he have found such warrant 
for the crimes of his frightfulness. And who 
shall say that when he hurled his gray hordes at 
the throats of Belgium and France, he was not 
thinking, for example, of this precedent found in 
the second chapter of Deuteronomy: “Rise ye up, 
take your journey, and pass over the river Ar- 
non: behold I have given into thine hand Sihon 
the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land; begin 
to possess it, and contend with him in battle.’’ 

But the Kaiser did not follow his biblical pre¬ 
cedent to the letter, for the thirty-fourth verse 
of the chapter quoted says: “And we took all his 
cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, 
and the women, and the little ones, of every city, 
we left none to remain.” The Kaiser, however 
much he may have been influenced by the Bible, 
though he killed as many men as he could, gave 
up the task of exterminating the women and 
children. In this respect the modern war-lord 
showed himself morally superior to his ancient 
model—J ehovah. 


132 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


As a deeply religious man, with ‘ 1 God for ever 
on his tongue, ’ ’ and the Bible at his pillow, the 
Kaiser has illustrated to the world the awful influ¬ 
ence of that so-called inspired hookas warlike 
recitals when doted on by ai crowned assassin 
dreaming of conquest. For, that Wilhelm II. was 
influenced by the Bible is beyond question; and 
his hireling clergy who defended his crime and 
promised him victory appealed to the same book. 

The Bible says, “Thou shalt not kill,” and 
then proceeds to recite a long and gruesome 
catalogue of murders, massacres and wars of con¬ 
quest, for which it claims the approval or com¬ 
mand of God. Hence the Bible is a dangerous 
moral guide. 

The thirteenth chapter of Romans enjoins: 
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher 
powers. For there is no power but of God: the 
powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever 
therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the or¬ 
dinance of God: and they that resist shall receive 
to themselves damnation.” These words justify 
the basest political tyranny. According to these 
words, resistance to despots is rebellion against 
Deity. The Bible would have us believe that the 
lovers of freedom who dethrone tyrants and es¬ 
tablish republics are criminals in the sight of 
God! 

Lying, cheating, stealing, slavery, religious 

prosecution, cannibalism, murder, war and ty- 

133 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


ranny are but some of the crimes that the Bible 
sanctions and defends. In Abraham’s preparation 
to sacrifice Isaac, in Jephthah’s sacrifice of his 
daughter, in David’s hanging of the seven sons of 
Saul, and in the law of the twenty-seventh chapter 
of Leviticus, the Bible ranges itself on the side of 
human sacrifices. In the lives of the patriarchs, 
of Gideon, of Saul, of David, of Solomon, and in 
the statute in the twenty-first chapter of Deuter¬ 
onomy, pertaining to the rights of the children of 
the hated wife, there is sanction of and legisla¬ 
tion for polygamy. In the twenty-second chapter 
of Exodus is found the injunction: “Thou shalt 
not sutler a witch to live,” a line winged with 
the ignorant spirit of murder, that lit the fires 
during the Christian centuries under hundreds of 
thousands of innocent women charged with the 
impossible! crime of witchcraft. In allowing a 
man to banish his wife at will, according to the 
twenty-first chapter of Deuteronomy, or to sub¬ 
ject her to the barbaric test of jealousy, prescribed 
in ttfe fifth chapter of Numbers, the Bible gives 
instances of its cruel subjection and degradation 
of women. As it upholds human sacrifices, polyg¬ 
amy, the witchcraft superstition and the brutal 
treatment of women, the Bible is a dangerous 
moral guide. 

Where the moral teachings of the Bible are 
not pernicious, they are often worthless, as for 

example, the advice to take no thought for the 

134 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 


morrow, to turn the other cheek to the smiter, to 
lend your goods to any borrower, to go two miles 
with the man who would compel you to go one, to 
sell all you have and give the proceeds to the 
poor, and other such counsels of perfection, which, 
if followed, would wreck and strand civilization. 

In the face of all this we are told that the 
Bible is inspired and holy, and the foundation of 
our civilization. What pious stupidity! Why is 
the world so backward to-day with all its boasted 
progress? Why have mankind not yet learned 
to live in peace and brotherhood? Because for two 
thousand vears the intellect of the world has been 
poisoned with the teachings of a book that glori¬ 
fies nearly every crime against humanity; because 
the church, instead of striving to develop the 
moral and intellectual resources of mankind, has 
enthralled the minds of men and women with the 
worship of the barbaric records of an uncivilized, 
tribal people. Says Professor Henry Sturt, of 
Oxford University, in “The Idea Of A Free 
Church”: “Of all the terrible intellectual dis¬ 
asters of Europe the Bible has been by far the 
greatest.’ ’ 

The truth is that the Bible is a dangerous 
moral guide, a guide which, if followed, would 
land men in the alms house or the penitentiary. 
All the language of exaggeration has been ex¬ 
hausted in praising that book, and yet that book 

has been the greatest enemy of the human race. 

135 


/ 


THE BIBLE A DANGEROUS MORAL GUIDE 

It has been the enemy of liberty, the enemy of 
knowledge, the enemy of morality. That book 
helped largely to destroy the civilization of 
Greece and Rome. It gave Europe the long night 
of the dark ages. It made ignorance and cruelty 
universal. It enslaved millions. It drenched 
Christian lands with the blood of persecution. It 
caused countless religious wars. It filled millions 
of lives with sorrow, and covered countless faces 
with tears. For the civilization we enjoy we are 
indebted to the brave thinkers who fought against 
the ignorance and the abuses that are championed 
by the Bible. The world has advanced in spite 
of the repressive influence of its “inspired” book. 
Every educated minister knows this. The best 
minds in the church today take consolation from 
the fact that the Bible is not true. The light is 
spreading everywhere. The clergy are apologiz¬ 
ing. Superstition is surely fading from the mind. 
Freethought holds the allegiance of the world’s 
best brains. The day is coming when mankind will 
own that while there are many good things in the 
Bible, its influence in the wmrld proves it to have 

been an extremely dangerous moral guide. 

136 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER 

DEATH ? 

Since the birth of religion, in the primeval 
world the human mind has asked the question: 
Is there a life after death? Are the few brief 
years that span our course from the cradle to 
the tomb the full measure of life allowed us? or 
is the passage through the veil of death the en¬ 
trance upon a life that will be immortal? The 
ages have come and gone; innumerable genera¬ 
tions have been laid to rest in the welcoming 
dust; and still mankind repeat the words of Job: 
“If a man die shall he live again?” Keligion 
has sought with painted promises to answer 
this question but its answers have not sufficed. 
Philosophy has uttered feeble words of hope 
but these have evoked no echo from the tomb. 
Through all the dying years the grave has been 
as silent as the sphinx. Man knows no more 
about another life to-day than the first savage 
mother knew when she pressed her trembling 
lips to the cold cheeks of her lifeless babe and 
marveled at the mystery of death—no more than 

the Egyptian slave knew when he wondered 

137 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


whether he would meet in another world the loved 
ones he had lost in this. A hundred centuries have 
like rivers flowed and lost their lapse in time’s 
eternal sea, while sincere souls have searched for 
some stray gleam of assurance that life, at the 
summons of death, continues in another sphere; 
but the tired eyes of saints and sages have 
peered into darkness; the wings of hope have 
fanned a voiceless air; the veil hung in the back¬ 
ground of the grave has not been lifted; no sign 
has come from the realm of the dead to tell us 
that beyond the sable border of this life we shall 
enjoy another. 

If there is another life, why has man through¬ 
out the ages yearned in vain to know of it? What 
known truth has so eluded the human mind? Can 
it be that while search in all other matters is 
rewarded with knowledge, some freak of fate 
defies us to discover the secret that we shall live 
again? Should we not perhaps take the hint 
that the fact that all the thought and effort of 
the ages to learn of another life has brought us 
no knowledge whatever of it is a strong presump¬ 
tion that the idea of a life beyond the grave is 
but an idle dream? 

Certain it is that while the hope of another 
life has welled within the heart, a tremendous 
doubt as to its reality has ever lingered in the 
thoughtful mind. Growing with increasing know¬ 
ledge, that doubt has come to be a potent factor 

138 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


in modern cultured thought. Since no glint of 
light has ever pierced the shroud of death, since 
nothing gives assurance that life survives the 
tomb, millions—among them the wisest and no¬ 
blest of mankind—feel that death is what it ap¬ 
pears to be, that Nature is not deceiving us—that 
life stops at the grave. No thoughful mind can 
long be satisfied with the belief that some wise 
design is withholding from us the fact that we 
are to live again. Nothing that we know or can 
imagine of Nature could justify belief in such a 
curious caprice. Reason, in the end, will force 
us to conclude either that the facts of life when 
understood indicate with some degree of clear¬ 
ness that we shall live again, or that those facts 
make it extremely probable—probable to the 
point of justifying conviction—that the belief in 
another life is a fond delusion. 

The question of immortality can not be settled 
for mankind in the partisan and prejudiced court 
of any church or creed. It must be settled in a 
court whose only interest is truth. Whether there 
is or is not another life must be determined—if 
determined at all—-by science. 

Science deals, not with fancies, but with facts. 
It does not create or change truth; it merely asw 
certains the truth that is. It strives to know 
actualities—the things that really are—and the 
conditions that must follow from existing facts. 

Science interprets nature in terms of causes 

139 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


and effects. It knows of no effect without a 
cause—of no cause without an effect. It can not 
conceive, nor can it admit any break in this chain 
of sequences. An effect without an efficient cause 
would be a miracle; and to admit miracle is to 
deny law. The universe is governed by law. 

Science deals with matter and force. It knows 
nothing of sprit. All the functions and activities 
of matter it understands as manifestations of 
force. The whole universe, so far as science ap¬ 
prehends it, is composed of these two factors— 
matter and force. The gleaming stars above 
our heads, the fertile earth beneath our feet, the 
mighty ocean’s rolling waves, the multi-colored 
glory of the rainbow, all forms of living things 
from the tender violet’s bloom to the massive 
oak that defies the storm, from the lark that 
thrills the air with song to the smiling mother 
whose touch is love—all things that exist so far 
as science can conceive are combinations of these 
creative factors—matter and force. A stone is 
matter: the cohesive power that holds its mole¬ 
cules together is force. The muscle is matter: 
its contraction is an employment of force. The 
stomach is a material arrangement: the process 
of digestion is performed by force. The brain is 
a delicate combination of matter: its function, 
thought, is a form of force. 

Now matter and force can not exist apart. 

There can be no force unconnected with matter 

140 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


—no matter not associated with force. The exist¬ 
ence of one necessitates the presence of the other. 
That one should exist alone is unthinkable. 

All knowledge is accumulated by proceeding 
with inquiry from the known to the unknown. Ac¬ 
cordingly, before we consider a future life, we 
must learn the nature of the present life, for if 
we are to live again that life must be in some 
way a continuation of the life we now enjoy. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that science 
utterly denies the possibility of the resurrection 
of the body. 

This organism we call our body, this material 
structure in which, with which, and by which 
we live, is but a transitory arrangement of sub¬ 
stances, and will pass away. Our bodies are com¬ 
posed of precisely the same elements as enter into 
the composition of the earth, the water and the air. 
Each of us is but a shapely combination of innum¬ 
erable millions of tiny cells of nitrogen, oxygen, 
hydrogen, carbon, phosphorus, iron, potassium, 
sulphur and other elements. About seventy per 
cent, of our weight is water. These cells of 
which we are composed are continually being 
destroyed and replaced by new ones. An army 
of new cells is, as it were, ever marching in the 
circulation of our blood to take the places of the 
cells that, like soldiers, have fallen in the battle 

of life, and to rebuild the tissues of our bodies 

141 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


to serve as fortifications to keep out the ever 
threatening invader—death. 

In this continuous process of disintegration 
and renewal our bodies are, so to speak, dying 
and being reborn every moment of our lives. 

In old age our tissues become less and less 
able to absorb and assimilate the renewing cells 
from our circulation, and when a certain stage of 
such incapacity has been reached, death ensues. 

Made as we are of the common elements of 
earth, wasting away and being rebuilt in every 
part with every breath we draw, uniting our 
bodies at last with the dust whence they came, 
nothing can be plainer than that our physical 
beings when returned to mother Nature will dis¬ 
solve and mingle their elements with the earth 
and air forever. Yet more; the particles that 
now make up our fragile frames will, after we 
have vanished from the stage of time, reappear 
again and again in the manifold processes of 
nature. They will appear in vegetation, blossom¬ 
ing in the rose and swaying in the stately pine; 
they will flow in the currents of rivers, nestle on 
the bosoms of flowers in glistening dew, and be 
wafted in sun-kissed breezes over continents and 
seas; they will reappear in countless animal 
forms, and with the march of the ages they will 
serve to build up the tissues of succeeding genera¬ 
tions of men. 

In nature nothing is lost. The same materials 

142 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


are used over and over again. The iron that 
circulates in the blood of a simpleton to-day, may 
in the next generation nerve the arm of a hero, or 
enrich the thought of a philosopher. 

Since nature makes the tree, the beast and 
the man of the same materials, never wasting an 
atom, but always using the old in the new, 
nothing is more certain than that we carry in 
our bodies the elements that have entered into 
the composition of many forests, of innumerable 
animals, and of countless generations of men. 
No man lives by himself alone even in the posses¬ 
sion of his body. We have, in a sense, the bodies 
of our ancestors, and the flesh we now know as 
ours will clothe the bones of generations yet 
unborn. For these reasons science assures us that 
those who, like the pious readers of the Church of 
England’s “Book of Common Prayer,” declare 
their belief in “the resurrection of the body,” 
hug to their breasts an absurd superstition. 

The facts of nature render the resurrection 
of the body inconceivable and impossible. 

But if the elements of the body are to mingle 
with the dust, float in the air, gurgle in streams, 
and enter into the composition of successive 
animal and plant forms, what part of us is it 
that is destined to live again? Seeing that the 
body must be left behind, that Nature dooms it 
to destruction, millions of believers in another 

life content themslves with the thought that the 

143 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 

mind or soul will, without the body, continue its 
existence in another sphere. But is such an exist¬ 
ence possible? Can the mind survive the death 
of the agent that produced it? In answer to this 
question the facts appear to be as conclusive 
as in the case of the resurrection of the body. 
Nothing is known of the mind except in connec¬ 
tion with the brain. The study of the mind is 
in every case the study of the brain in action. 
The whole science of physiological psychology 
demonstrates that mind is neither more nor less 
than a brain function. Says Professor William 
Kingdon Clifford, in his “Lectures and Essays:” 
“The laws connecting consciousness with changes 
in the brain are very definite and precise, and 
their necessary consequences are not to be evad¬ 
ed.’ ’ “Surely,” says Professor Huxley, in his 
essay on “Hume,” “no one who is cognizant of 
the facts of the case, nowadays, doubts that the 
roots of psychology lie in the physiology of the 
nervous system. What we call the operations 
of the mind are functions of the brain, and the 
materials of consciousness are products of cere¬ 
bral activity.” “Mind,” writes Dr. Maudsley, 
in “Responsibility in Mental Disease,” “may be 
defined physiologically as a general term denot¬ 
ing the sum-total of those functions of the brain 
which are known as thought, feeling, and will. 
By disorder of the mind is meant disorder of 

those functions.” Professor Romanes, in his 

144 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


book on “Monism,” holds that mind is “nothing 
but matter in motion.” 

The dependence of the mind upon the brain 
is so certain, so perfect, so unvarying, as to make 
thought apart from brain rationally unthinkable. 
The quantity and quality of thought depend upon 
the quantity and quality of the brain, upon the 
development of its various parts, upon the num¬ 
ber and depth of its convolutions. Man is the 
most intelligent of all creatures because of all 
living things he has the most highly developed 
brain substance. 

With the exception of the elephant and the 
whale, man surpasses the whole animal world in 
the absolute weight of his brain, while relatively 
man’s brain is larger than that of any other 
creature. A certain quantity of brain is essen¬ 
tial to the possession of normal intelligence. The 
average human brain weights forty-nine and one- 
half ounces. The brains of idiots as a rule, weigh 
from sixteen to thirty-two ounces; but the brain 
of an idiotic woman, forty-two years of age, 
weighed only a fraction over ten ounces. On 
the other hand, men of exceptional intellectual 
power are, for the most part, men of exception¬ 
ally large brains. While the average brain weighs 
slightly over three pounds, the brain of Cuvier, 
the illustrious French naturalist, weighed nearly 
four, and Gladstone’s brain is said to have 

weighed five pounds and three ounces. Among 

145 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


the largest brains of the world were those of 
Cromwell, Byron, Schiller and Napoleon—all men 
of vast potency of thought. That men with small 
brains have been great, has been due to the pecu¬ 
liar development of the brain substance, to its 
superior quality, or to unusual application. But 
while greatness in some direction may be the child 
of a small brain, comprehensive greatness is no¬ 
where found except in connection with a large 
brain well favored in its form. 

Whole races are superior to other races by 
reason of brain development. The superiority of 
the Caucasian race over the negroid races lies in 
the larger and nobler conformation of the white 
man’s cerebral lobes. 

The force of the intellect and the richness cf 
the emotions depend upon the number and dept 
of the convolutions of the brain—its wrinkles and 
folds—no less than upon its actual size. In the 
lower orders of life—fishes, amphibians and 
birds—the brain-surface is almost smooth, and 
intelligence is correspondingly low. In the higher 
animals, like the dog, the elephant and the ape, 
the brain is well supplied with convolutions, and, 
accordingly, the intelligence is vastly higher. In 
the brain of the new-born babe the convolutions 
are but beginning to form, and as they grow 
with the growth of the brain the mind as gradu¬ 
ally grows from its first faint light to its full- 
orbed effulgence. 


146 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


The size of the brain is increased by intense 
mental activity. Anatomists experienced in dis¬ 
secting human brains concur in the observation 
that the brains of serious students—philosophers, 
poets, scientists, statesmen, and scholars and 
thinkers generally—are firmer in their consist¬ 
ency, more symmetrical in their development, and 
more generously supplied with deep convolutions 
than the brains of common workmen. The con¬ 
volutions in the brain of Beethoven were found 
to be “twice as deep and numerous as usual.” 

Another proof that the brain is the organ of 
thought—that mind is a function of the brain— 
is found in the facts of physiology. As the great 
central office of the nervous system, with its 
cables of communication running to every part 
of the body, the brain receives through the sens¬ 
ory nerves a constant flow of impressions from 
the outer world, and flashes messages back over 
the motor wires with lightning speed. Hence the 
mind changes with the different impressions the 
brain receives, and at any given moment the 
whole body will reflect the state of mind that has 
arisen through the action of the brain. 

Man is not a duality—mentally and physically 
he is one. Under the stimulus of good news his 
eyes sparkle, his whole being thrills with joy; in 
fear he turns pale; in shame he blushes; in anger 
the enlivened blood suffuses his cheeks with its 

red glow. The sight of one in pain, or even 

147 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


an unpleasant thought, will make him swoon. 
Swayed by a violent emotion, he will vomit. 
Sudden grief will whiten his hair. If the blood 
courses too swiftly through his brain, his thought 
will gallop in confusion: if too slowly, he will be¬ 
come unconscious. A little alcohol will banish his 
reason, loosen his tongue, suspend his sense of 
shame and arouse his passions. Loss of sleep mil 
dull his thought. Too much thought will waste his 
flesh. The expectation of some delicious morsel 
will cause a rapid secretion of saliva in his mouth. 
If he eats too much he will dream when he is 
asleep. If he eats too little he will have visions 
when he is awake. When the body is fatigued 
the mind flags, but when the body and the brain 
have been refreshed with sleep, the mind returns 
with buoyant clearness to its tasks. So it is that 
our physical condition depends largely upon the 
mind, while the mind in turn reflects the physical 
condition. 

Not only is thought created by molecular move¬ 
ments in the brain, but the different faculties are 
born within and confined to different parts of the 
brain. The brain, like the body, has its division 
of labor. Experimental study of the brains of 
lower animals, and observations on brain lesions 
in the human subject, have proved that each de¬ 
partment of mind is presided over by its own area 
of brain substance. Thus with one portion of the 

brain we see, with another we hear, with another 

14S 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


we taste, with another we are conscious of touch, 
while the office of another is to preside over the 
sense of smell. When we move the eyes or the 
lips, the arms or the legs, we do so with the per¬ 
mission of the motor areas of the brain that con¬ 
trol these parts of our bodies. Breathing, sneez- 
ing, coughing, the secretion of saliva, and swal¬ 
lowing, are controlled by their respective brain 
centres. The intellectual and perceptive faculties 
are located in the cerebrum—the frontal lobes. 
The emotions are born in the parietal lobes. 
Each part of the brain attends to its particular 
function, and the sum total of these functions is 
what we call the mind, or the soul. 

Moreover, anatomy proves that this mind or 
soul can be destroyed piece by piece by destroy¬ 
ing the brain section by section. Flourens, the 
French physiologist, saw the faculties of animals 
on which he experimented, fade away one by one 
as he removed successive portions of their brains. 
He carried this process of mind destruction so 
far in fowls, that the creatures, with the thinking 
portions of their brains entirely removed, and 
their minds completely gone, still lived, though 
in a perfectly stupid condition. Utterly uncon¬ 
scious, as void of mind as stones, unresponsive 
to stimulus of any kind, these creatures, kept 
alive by artifical feeding, nevertheless lived for 
months—some of them for years—and not only 

lived, but increased in weight. Similar experi- 

149 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


ments have been performed on some of the higher 
animals, and in every instance a portion of the 
mind has died with the destruction of the portion 
of the brain to which that faculty belonged. Now 
the human mind, like the animal mind, can be 
destroyed piecemeal. A man becomes blind if 
the sight centre of his brain is injured by 
hemorrhage. He becomes deaf if the hearing 
centre is destroyed. Similar lesions will banish 
his other senses. Lesion of the speech centre 
destroys the power to express one’s self in words. 
In the deaf and dumb, an injury to this part of 
the brain is followed by the loss of power to ex¬ 
press ideas in the sign language. Paralysis of 
the brain annihilates intelligence. 

What stronger proof could be required that 
the mind is mortal, that it dies with the brain, 
than to see it disappear, one faculty after an¬ 
other, before the advance of the surgeon’s knife, 
or ruinous injury, or disease, until the last 
vestige of intelligence vanishes forever from the 
ruined brain? 

But drowning men, as a proverb has it, will 

t 

grasp at straws. So it is not surprising that 
some philosophers, loath to give up a cherished 
doctrine, should advocate strange and irrational 
theories with endeavor to at least make it appear 
possible that the soul will continue to live after 
the body has returned its elements to the dust. 

One of these mqn was the late William James, 

150 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


the eminent Professor of psychology at Harvard 
University. Professor James’ theory was not 
new, and perhaps he advanced it as a piece of 
pure speculation rather than as a rooted convic¬ 
tion. As a scientific thinker, Professor James 
well knew that the mind is a function of the 
brain, and he fully acknowledged the fact as a 
sound demonstration of science. But having 
granted this, he went on to suppose, in his lecture 
on “Human Immortality,” that perhaps the 
mind does not originate in the brain, that per¬ 
haps it comes to us from some unseen world, 
that having entered a man’s head it uses his 
brain as its organ of expression while here, and 
that on the death of the brain, it wings its flight 
to its original home. 

This idea of the external origin of mind, of 
mind as a distinct principle, is the last surviving 
relic of the Greek notion of indwelling entities 
which found its leading exponent in Plato. Ac¬ 
cording to Plato, organic and inorganic things 
derive their peculiar character from their re¬ 
spective entities: a man thinks, a dog obeys his 
master, a tree grows, a statue has form, because 
each is possessed of an immaterial idea—a soul. 
For many centuries, this notion of entities in all 
things was popular in Christian teaching. But 
the advent of science has so far banished the 
superstition from the world that to-day all things 

but the human mind are acknowledged to act in 

151 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


accordance with their own inherent forces. The 
human mind alone is still believed by some to be 
an immaterial entity—an independent thing—a 
visiting principle from some other world domi¬ 
ciled within the brain. 

This is to suppose that there is somewhere in 
the universe a great reservoir of mind, and that 
at the birth of every babe a portion of this mind 
comes to earth and enters the baby’s head. But 
how could this realm of mind, which must be a 
form of force, exist apart from matter? Such 
an existence is inconceivable. 

Again, if only sufficient mind for a babe enters 
the child’s head, how does it happen that as the 
child grows his mind develops, so that when he 
becomes a man he is possessed of a man’s mindJ? 
Does enough mind to do for a man come dow 
when the child is born? and does it enter the 
growing child’s head a little at a time while the 
rest waits outside? Or does the great reservoir 
of mentality, from its lofty height, pour a steady 
stream of mind into the child’s head, slowly at 
first, and then faster, during all the years of 
mental growth from babyhood to manhood? 

There is another objection to this curious and 
fantastic supposition. If mind is not born within 
the brain, but comes to the brain full-fledged from 
another world, and merely uses the brain as a 
vehicle of expression while here, how shall we 

explain the many different qualities of mind? 

152 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 

and how shall we account for the changes that 
take place in minds during their residence in the 
brains of men? Is the savage given a savage 
mind? Is the idiot given an idiotic mind? Does 
the African get the Negro mind merely because 
he is black? Is the genius given a mind whose 
majesty glories in the wealth of its creative 
powers? Is one man given a mind that overflows 
with love and goodness? another a mind that 
revels in cruelty? another a mind that continues 
normal for many years and then becomes insane? 

Is there somewhere a sea of mind from which 
superstition, degeneracy, imbecility, criminality, 
genius and normal intelligence emanate ? and does 
the fact that a man is superstitious, or a degen¬ 
erate, or an imbecile, or a criminal, or a genius, 
or normal in his thoughts and deeds, depend 
upon the kind of mind that has come from that 
mental ocean to sojourn in his brain? 

If the mind is not created by the brain, why 
does its quantity and quality depend upon the 
quantity and quality of the brain? Why is nor¬ 
mal intelligence never found in brains below a 
certain weight? Why does injury to the brain 

destroy forever the associated mental faculties? 

/ 

or make a thief of one who formerly was honest? 
or a cruel man of one who erstwhile was kind? 
Why does disease of the brain disintegrate intel¬ 
ligence and make the mind insane? 

If the mind is not a function of the brain, why 

153 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


should it be in all respects subject to the vicis¬ 
situdes of the body? Why should it grow old and 
feeble with the age and decay of its imprisoning 
brain? Do we not see that in old age the sight 
fails, the hearing becomes dull, memory fumbles 
and forgets, ideas limp in half-completed form, 
while the whole intellectual fire that flamed full 
and high in life’s long-gone prime burns low with 
lapsing vigor in growing nearness to the feeble 
embers of the worn-out brain? Before the end 
of life, in such instances, the mind gradually dies, 
and when death comes it closes the career of a 
mere remnant of mentality. 

And if the mind, the soul, comes to the brain 
from some other sphere, is it not strange that it 
should remember nothing of its origin, that it 
should be without conception of its previous 
existence, and that it should grope and guess in 
doubt and darkness as to its future? 

Those who believe that consciousness is not a 
property of the brain, argue that the mind and 
the brain sustain the same relation to one an¬ 
other than the musician sustains to his instru¬ 
ment. But the mind and the brain keep pace in 
growth. Does the violin grow with the violinist? 
The mind sleeps with the tired brain. Does the 
violin tire and sleep with the player? In sleep 
the mind dreams. Does the violin play discord¬ 
ant tunes when the performer is unconscious? 

The player may be in New York, when his 

154 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 

violin is in San Francisco. Can the mind thns 
completely separate itself from the brain? With 
disease of the brain the mind becomes insane. 
Does the violinist lose his reason when his instru¬ 
ment breaks a string? And can the artist retain 
his musical ability forever after the instrument 
has been destroyed? Does not the existence of 
the violinist as such necessitate the existence of 
the violin? Surely this analogy, pretty though 
it be, fails to account for consciousness, or to 
shed any light on its continuance in the absence 
of the brain. 

Is it reasonable to suppose that while every 
other organ of the body is alive with its own 
motion, and performs its inherent function, the 
brain, the most marvelously complex organ of all, 
would be a dead mass in the cavern of the skull 
unless played upon by some extraneous intel¬ 
ligence? The infinite absurdity of such a sup¬ 
position is clearly portrayed in the story of 
man’s origin. 

Man is a child of evolution. His body and his 
brain have been built up through) the gradual 
accumulation of countless improvements during 
millions of ages. Psychical and physical evolu¬ 
tion have moved in unison, and man owes his 
soul no less than his body to the innumerable 
animal forms at every stage of life’s advance 
through which his ancestors arose. Standing at 

the head of the long procession of life, related 

155 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


to the animals below him in every bone and 
sinew of his being, his thought differs from the 
thought of other creatures in degree only, not 
in kind. Man’s soul, the sum total of his facul¬ 
ties, emerged with him from the animal world, 
and is as natural in all respects as his physical 
frame. Now let those who say that this soul is 
a divine spark that will live forever essay to 
answer the question: At what period in the evolu¬ 
tionary process was this soul implanted in our 
ancestors? Was it born in the primal substance 
in which life first arose? Was it implanted when 
life’s highest form was a worm, a fish, an am¬ 
phibian? Was it conferred upon the first mam¬ 
mal? or upon the highest ape? Was it pressed 
into the fierce, low skull of primitive man? Or 
has man been blessed with this gift of immor¬ 
tality at some late stage in his advance towards 
civilization? 

In the old days when it was believed that man 
was a special creation, that a creating God, in 
the role of a potter, having molded his form in 
clay, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, 
it was easily believed that his soul was destined 
to enjoy immortality. But knowing as we do to¬ 
day that the life on this planet is one, that the 

highest form is the outgrowth of the lowest, that 

• 

the kinship is universal from monad to man, it 
is impossible to tell where the line should be 

drawn between the human , and the non-human— 

156 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


for none can say where or when, as life unfolded, 
the human was born from the beast—and, accord¬ 
ingly, it has become more difficult than it was of 
yore to believe in the immortality of the soul. 

The Brahmans and the Buddhists believe that 
the souls of men, according to their merit, are 
reincarnated into beasts more or less degraded, 
or into men of different stations from paupers to 
kings, or into divinities. But this doctrine of 
transmigration, which accords souls subject to 
elevation and degradation to animals and men, 
sheds no light on the origin and nature of the 
soul. And if it be true, as Buddhists believe, 
that Sakyamuni, before he became Buddha, un¬ 
derwent five hundred and fifty births, in which 
he was a fish, a frog, a hermit, an elephant, a 
slave, an ape, a king, we need not wonder that 
the Buddhists long for annihilation. There can 
be little consolation in the belief that one’s soul 
may, in the next generation, dwell in the body 
of a lizard. The prospect of eternal nothing¬ 
ness would be vastly better than this. 

One of the few men of science who in recent 
years have given their assent to the belief in a 
future life is Sir Oliver Lodge. While scouting 
as a superstition the idea of the resurrection of 
the body, Sir Oliver yet clings to the immortality 
of the soul. In his book ‘ ‘ Science and Immortal¬ 
ity,” he defines the soul as being ‘ 4 that control¬ 
ling and guiding principle which is responsible 

157 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 

for our personal expression, and for the construc¬ 
tion of the body under the restrictions of physical 
conditions and ancestryand he allows that 
this principle “ seems identical with the principle 
of life. , ’ Unfortunately, this definition includes 
too much. It includes all animals and plants as 
well as human beings. For if the principle of 
life that fashioned men in accordance with hered¬ 
ity and environment is to live forever, then the 
principle that shaped the poison ivy, or the beast 
of the jungle, under the action of the same laws, 
must be immortal for the same reason. Seeing 
that this objection can be urged against his posi¬ 
tion, that according to his doctrine it can be held 
4 ‘that all living things must possess some rudi¬ 
ment of soul,” Sir Oliver avows: “Well, for 
myself, I do not see how to draw a hard-and- 
fast distinction between one form of life and 
another.” Accordingly, the eminent scientist 
appears to be perfectly willing to share the joys 
of immortality with the souls of beasts. Imagine 
the ecstacy of eternal existence with the ghosts of 
all the beasts that have moved across earth’s 
swarming stage since life appeared upon this 
globe—all the curious, weird and monstrous crea¬ 
tures that have inhabited the ocean, earth and air 
—things armed with fangs and claws to rend their 
living prey, from lizards to vultures, from the 
vanished monsters of prehistoric times whose 

tremendous skeletons now excite wonder in mu- 

158 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


seums, to the poison serpents that crush their 
hapless victims in slimy coils! For such a 
heaven doubtless few will yearn. 

Sir Oliver Lodge has great confidence in telep¬ 
athy, visions, dreams, clairvoyance, materializa¬ 
tions, and other supposed spirit phenomena as 
means by which it may be proved that life con¬ 
tinues after death. The great physicist is indeed 
an ardent devotee of Spiritualism, the extrava¬ 
gant claims of which he accepts with unquestion¬ 
ing delight. But telepathy—the transference of 
thought from one mind to another without the 
assistance of the senses—has never in a single 
instance been proved. Every scientific attempt 
to demonstrate it has failed. But if the reality 
of telepathy were/ established beyond question, 
it would merely extend our knowledge of the 
powers of the brain; it would not, it could not, 
prove the continuance of consciousness after the 
dissolution of the body. Dreams are wanderings 
of the mind among the images of memory wdien 
the curtain of consciousness is not drawn quite 
down in perfect sleep. Visions are day dreams— 
hallucinations—pictures from the walls of mem¬ 
ory projected into the empty air. Dreams and 
visions, with their freakish and fallacious forms, 
are born within the brain and are impotent to 
prove that we shall live after we are dead. As 
to clairvoyance, it is sufficient to say that Spiri¬ 
tualist mediums have told the world nothing that 

159 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


was not or could not have been known to some 
living person. 

Sir Oliver Lodge offers as evidence of a future 
life the materialization of spirits—ghosts from 
the spirit world that appear at the beck of medi¬ 
ums in the darkness of Spiritualist seances. But 
here facts give us pause. First, these material¬ 
ized spirits—like all other ghosts—always ap¬ 
pear clothed—a fact by which a ghost might 
easily be mistaken for a live person. Secondly, 
Maskelyne, the English conjurer, could produce 
as healthy-looking materializations as any ever 
produced by mediums. And thirdly, wherever 
intrepid and critical spectators have been able to 
seize the materialized form, they have confirmed 
their suspicion that the ghost and the medium 
were one and the same person. 

In “Raymond,’’ Sir Oliver Lodge gives the 
world alleged communications from the spirit 
of his son Raymond, who was killed in the war 
in 1915. According to these messages, which 
come from Mrs. Leonard, the medium, who says 
her “guide ’’ in the spirit world is an Indian girl 
named Feda, the spirits have bodies and organs 
as in the flesh—arms and legs, eyes, ears, tongue 
and teeth! These spirits wear clothes—Ray¬ 
mond ’s suit is made of decayed worsted. His 
house is made of bricks, and there is granite in 
that spirit land. There are laboratories there, 

where all sorts of things are manufactured, in- 

160 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 

eluding cigars which the spirits smoke! “Some 
want meat, and some strong drink,’’ says Ray¬ 
mond. 4 4 They call for whiskey sodas. Don’t think 
I’m stretching it when I tell you that they manu¬ 
facture even that.” And this place where there 
is smoking, eating, and the bibbing of 4 4 whiskey 
sodas,” where people clothed in worsted live in 
brick houses, is the land of discarnate spirits! 
And Sir Oliver Lodge, the man of science, having 
outgrown the dogmas of Christianity, kneels in 
the temple of the superstition of Spiritualism 
and gives such lying drivel the countenance of 
his honored name. 

To such a degree is the literature of Spiritual¬ 
ism blasted with banalities, so stupid, inane and 
false are the messages attributed to the great 
geniuses dead, so unattractive is the picture it 
presents of the spirit world, that with reference 
to the question the great Huxley was constrained 
to say: 44 The only good that I can see in the 
demonstration of the truth of Spiritualism is to 
furnish an additional argument against suicide.” 

No communication from an alleged discarnate 
spirit has ever been received under circumstances 
which guaranteed its genuineness. Every scien¬ 
tific test made to establish the existence of spirits 
has yielded disappointing results. Mr. F. W. H. 
Myers, an enthusiast of Psychical Research, left 
a letter sealed in several envelopes with his 

bankers, hoping to reveal its contents from the 

161 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


spirit world through a medium. But when Mrs. 
Verrall, in 1905, fourteen years after the letter 
was written, received through automatic writing 
what she believed to be the contents of the letter 
coming from the spirit of Mr. Myers, the two 
messages, compared at a special meeting of the 
Society of Psychical Research, were found to be 
totally dissimilar. Then too, it must be remem¬ 
bered that slate writing, spirit photography, table 
tilting, and all the mechanical “phenomena” of 
the seance, can be produced by various kinds of 
trickery; that it is as easy to get a “spirit mes¬ 
sage” from a living person as from a dead one— 
provided the medium thinks the person dead; 
and that nearly all the famous mediums, from 
the Fox sisters to Eusapia Palladino, have been 
exposed as frauds. One is not surprised, there¬ 
fore, at Sir Oliver Lodge’s confession that “by 
the mass of scientific men the whole subject is 
at present ignored, because it seems an elusive 
and disappointing inquiry.” 

But is there not at least, something strange in 
Spiritualism? Suppose there is. There is some¬ 
thing strange in hypnotism. And Dr. J. Milne 
Bramwell, the master hypnotist, is convinced that 
what Spiritualists regard as the, manifestation 
of spiritual beings, is due to the action of the 
subconscious mind of the medium, which becomes 
active in the trance. Mr. Frank Podmore, the ex¬ 
pert psychical researcher, agreed with this view. 

162 





IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


Notwithstanding his supposition that mind 
might be a foreign entity in the brain, Professor 
William James, in his posthumous volume of 
“Memories and Studies,** declared that after 
twenty-five years of Psychical Research, he was 
still “no ‘further* than at the beginning** as to 
the question whether the soul survives bodily 
death. Professor James quotes Professor Sidg- 
wick as saying that after twenty-five years of 
pyschical investigation he was still “in the same 
identical state of doubt and balance that he start¬ 
ed with.** These are eloquent admissions. In 
his book “The Belief in Personal Immortality** 
Mr. E. S. P. Haynes observes that “Psychical 
Research has, so far, done nothing but extend 
the region of experimental psychology.’* The 
scientific study of the mind has, as yet, discov¬ 
ered no evidence of a future life. 

In “The Bankruptcy of Religion** Mr. Joseph 
McCabe, after pointing out that modern phil¬ 
osophy arose in the endeavor to establish on the 
ground of reason the existence and attributes of 
God and the immortality of the soul, draws atten¬ 
tion to the significant fact that discussion of these 
questions has now passed out of the literature 
of philosophy. “You might,** says Mr. McCabe, 
“attend the lectures on philosophy for a whole 
year at any great modern university—at Oxford 
or Cambridge, at Columbia or Harvard, at Paris 

or Berlin—and you would hear no more about 

163 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 

God and the soul than you would hear m the 
lectures on physiology.” The verdict of phi - 
osophy is that neither the existence of God nor 
the immortality of the soul can be detei mined by 
the intellect. 

Professor James H. Leuba, in “The Belief in 
God and Immortality,” shows statistically from 
replies to a questionnaire addressed by him to 
American scientists, historians, sociologists and 
psychologists, that those who either do not be¬ 
lieve in or doubt immortality number among the 
physical scientists 49.3%; among the biologists 
63%; among the historians 48.5%; among the 
greater professors of sociology 72.9%; and 
among the psychologists 80.2%. It is significant 
too, that the more eminent the men in any of 
these departments of study, the greater is the 
proportion of unbelievers among them. 

We are frequently told that the desire for a 
future life is universal and that this desire must 
prove its reality. But the truth is that the belief 
in immortality is far from being universal. It is 
not found among the Veddahs of Ceylon, some 
native Australian races, and other primitive 
peoples. It is not found in Buddhism, the religion 
of one-third of the human race—the Buddhists 
long for Nirvana—the cessation of existence. It 
is absent alike from the ancient religion of China 
and from Confucianism. And millions in the 
western world neither believe in nor desire it. 

164 



IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 

But suppose the desire for immortality were uni¬ 
versal. That certainly would not prove its truth. 
History teems with unsatisfied desire. As John 
Stuart Mill observed, the desire for food is no 
indication that we shall have an everlasting 
supply of it. 

The desire for immortality is strongest in 
youth. In youth, when daring thought is at the 
zenith of its power, when the sun of ambition 
illumines the hope of things to be achieved, when 
life’s contests are made joyous by the glamour of 
success, a high sense of our importance courses 
swiftly through the veins; we are egotistic; we 
feel the restless urge of life and wish it to con¬ 
tinue. But in old age when the strength to strive 
is gone, when the mind regrets the vanished 
power of its golden years, when life’s prizes and 
applause pass the trembling palm to rest in 
steady hands, when the weary traveler with dod¬ 
dering step nears the foot of the downward hill, 
his tired ey^es no longer yearn to see; and as the 
shadows of night fall athwart the lessening rays 
of life’s departing sun, the old man is content to 
lay his burden down in sleep. 

They say another life is necessary to right 
the wrongs of this. But why should we suppose 
that the power that gave us this life will treat us 
better in another? What warrant have we for 
supposing that the victims of injustice here, 

would fare better there? Justice and injustice 

165 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


are but human terms; Nature seems unconscious 
of their meaning; and there is no reason for be¬ 
lieving that the ills endured in this world will be 
atoned for in another. 

And is it not pertinent to ask: If immortality 
be true, how old shall we be in that endless life? 
Will the babe that died in its mother’s arms be 
a helpless babe forever? Will those who passed 
the bourne of time palsied with old age be eter¬ 
nally decrepit? Or will all enjoy life at its glow¬ 
ing noon? And what shall be our condition 
there? Since we can not take our present bodies, 
shall we have other bodies? If yes, will those 
bodies be exactly like these? Then, will those 
born deaf and dumb endure these handicaps 
forever? Will the idiotic be denied the light of 
reason while the aeons of time roll away? But 
if we are not to have bodies, are we to suppose 
that we shall see without eyes, hear without ears, 
feel without fingers, and converse without organs 
of speech? 

And what shall we do to while away the time? 
shall we just lounge around forever? Would not 
endless existence without work drive us mad 
with ennui? 

If all the human beings that ever lived are to 
be immortal may we not have difficulty in finding 
our friends? And are we sure that we shall 
know them? 

In a lecture on “Immortality” delivered at 

166 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


Harvard University in 1906, Professor Wilhelm 
Ostwald declared that the possibility of remem¬ 
brance after death seems to be out of the ques¬ 
tion. But if there is no remembrance, personality 
will be gone, and immortality without personality 
would not be immortality at all. Impersonal im¬ 
mortality would be the immortality of a clod. 
If memory perishes all is lost. But how shall 
we remember with our nervous system gone? 
Yet nerves and brain can not endure. 

Where is this land in which we shall live 
again? Certainly it is not in this world. Then is 
it on some other planet in our solar group? Or 
is it in some ethereal region in the interstellar 
space millions of light years distant from our 
globe? Truly, the most amazing thing about an¬ 
other life is our stark ignorance of it. 

Christians believe that immortality is vouched 
for by the Bible. Let us see. The belief was not 
a part of the religion of the ancient Jews, and 
the Old Testament denies it. In Job, chapter 
seven, verse nine, we read: “As the cloud is con¬ 
sumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down 
to the grave shall come up no more.” Eccles¬ 
iastes, after saying in the third chapter that 
“a man has no preeminence above a beast,’’ that 
“all go unto one place,” that “all are of the dust, 
and all turn to dust again,” says in chapter nine: 
“For the living know that they shall die: but the 

dead know not anything, neither have they any 

167 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


more a reward; for the memory of them is for¬ 
gotten. ’’ 

“But my belief is based on the New Testa¬ 
ment, on the promises of Christ,’ ’ says the Chris¬ 
tian. But nobody knows who made the supposed 
promises of Christ, and, at any rate, they have 
not been kept. In Matthew 24:34, in Mark 13:30, 
and in Luke 21:32, Christ, after describing his 
second coming “in the clouds of heaven with 
power and great glory ,’ 9 is made to say: “This 
generation shall not pass till all these things be 
fulfilled.” But that generation did pass, and 
three score more have followed it, and Christ— 
if he ever came—and this is a matter of increas¬ 
ing doubt—has not returned to bless his followers 
with another life. It remains written, of course, 
that “In my Father’s house are many man¬ 
sions;” but the telescope, sweeping the heavens 
for billions of miles, past myriads of constella¬ 
tions, has failed to discover the Father’s man- 
sioned home. 

It is of interest to note that according to 
Christianity, our immortal life does not begin at 
death, but at some indefinite time thereafter. 
There is to be a resurrection of the dead, followed 
by a* general judgment, before immortality be¬ 
gins. But the Bible does not say, and no one can 
tell, when the resurrection is to be. In the mean¬ 
time the dead are dead—their souls are as un¬ 
conscious as their dust. Now fancy the men and 

168 



IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


women of all the vanished ages since death first 
stilled the human heart, being resurrected and 
judged, sometime, perhaps, in the next thousand 
million years! Think of the joy we should feel 
in the contemplation that after we have been 
dead perhaps a million ages, we shall be made to 
live again! Truly, this is a forlorn hope. Chris¬ 
tianity to all intents and purposes offers us not 
certain immortality but gilded annihilation. An¬ 
other life is of interest only as the continuation 
of this. If extinction is to overtake us at the tomb 
that death may as well be eternal. 

There is another thing to be considered. 
While Christianity promises, everlasting joy to 
the few who believe its creed, it prophesies 
eternal pain for nearly all the world. It predicts 
that while the saved strum harps in selfish glee 
throughout the endless flight of years, the moans 
of millions damned wilt rise forever from the 
holocaust designed by a vengeful God’s undying 
hate. These are the Christians destinies—this, 
according to Christianity, is to be the life eternal 
in heaven and in hell. But such an immortality, 
far from being a blessing, would be a measureless 
curse. Infinitely better is annihilation for all 
than that one person should suffer eternal pain. 
The Christian heaven is a selfish dream; and hell 
is but the hollow threat of pious fiends. The 
Bible knows nothing of a life to come! 

The truth is that the doctrine of immortality 

169 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


owes nothing to Christianity. Thousands of 
years before Christ was born, before a line of 

the Bible was written, countless millions of men 

; 

and women lived and died hoping for another 
life. It was from the Persians—from the wor¬ 
shippers of Zoroaster—that the Jews derived the 
doctrine of immortality. The hope of another 
life is not a Christian dogma but a pagan dream. 
And if the dream be true, if when we die here we 
enter into life in some other sphere, the fact has 
nothing to do with any religion. It can not be af¬ 
fected by belief or disbelief. It is a fact in nature 
—like the growth of vegetation, or the light of 
the stars—an attribute of the cosmic order. It 
exists for everyone. It is our fate. Eternal and 
unchangeable is the destiny that awaits us all. 

Let us remember, too, that even if we could 
prove that there is a life after death, that fact 
would not establish the truth of immortality. 
For it might be that old age and death wait upon 
life in that world as in this; the average life 
might be no longer there 1 than here; and that 
second death might close the story of each life 
forever. 

There is a question more. Is immortality de¬ 
sirable? Can we look forward with pleasure to 
an endless life of which we have no conception? 
This life is blessed with the assurance that death 
will terminate its woes. But what if eternal life 

should prove unsatisfactory? What if, at last, 

170 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


weary of existence, we should long to die? Then 
joy would turn to ashes—endless life would re¬ 
solve itself into an endless curse. The thought 
is dreadful! 

But the facts of nature seem to prove that 
we shall not live again. “We are forced to this 
definite conclusion:’’ says Haeckel, in “The Rid¬ 
dle of the Universe,” “The belief in the immor¬ 
tality of the human soul is a dogma which is in 
hopeless contradiction with the most solid em¬ 
pirical truths of modern science .’’ Professor 
Proctor, the astronomer, wrote: “Herbert Spen¬ 
cer shows abundantly the nothingness of the evid¬ 
ence on which the common belief in a future life 
has been based.” Professor Tyndall put the whole 
argument in a line: “Divorced from matter, 
where is life to be found?” Nor are scientists 
and philosophers alone in recognizing the fact 
that the laws of nature seem to deny the possi¬ 
bility of a future life. The Reverend Minot J. 
Savage said: “Have we any proof of immortal¬ 
ity? . . I cannot think we have anything which 
may be called evidence concerning an immortal 
life. . . Immortality is not susceptible of proof.” 
The Reverend R. Heber Newton declared: “We 
know nothing of life that is disembodied. . . We 
know nothing of mind apart from matter. . . I 
have no confidence in any faith which is not cap¬ 
able of a scientific basis.” 

The belief in immortality has been fearfully 

171 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


expensive to mankind. For many ages it made 
humanity the slaves of priests. Lured by the 
glamour of heaven, millions have neglected the 
concerns of this life for the fancied interests of 
another. Recoiling from the withering threat of 
hell, millions have spent their days in supersti¬ 
tious fear. The religious persecutions that have 
drenched the face of earth with tears and blood, 
the religious wars with their ruin and desolation, 
the sectarian hate and strife that have embittered 
human relations, have been born of the belief that 
this life is but a prelude to another. With the 
passing of the belief in immortality, freedom 
grows, knowledge increases, sects merge into 
humanity, and everywhere, as the mind of man 
enlarges the world’s moral tone improves. 

Is there a life after death? There does not 
appear to be. The clods fall on the coffin and w r e 
leave our dead in the tomb. Their flesh is de¬ 
composed; their bones disintegrate and disap¬ 
pear. A few years pass, and Nature has fully 
reabsorbed the forms we knew and loved. Yes¬ 
terday they lived; to-day we are here; tomorrow 
others will hold the stage. Nature moves from 
birth to death, and life and death appear to 
round the circle of existence. 

Why should we live forever? Why should 
Nature have selected us to share the banquet of 
everlasting existence? What have we done to 

deserve immortality? Why should we desire it? 

172 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 

No other forms in nature are permanent: Why 
should we regard ourselves as destined to enjoy 
eternal life? All other things perish: Why 
should we endure? The globe on which we live 
will become a cold and crusted rock and all things 
on its bosom will die; the moon will fall back to 
the frigid breast of mother earth; the sun will 
lose his stores of heat and wheel in space a life¬ 
less orb; the night and the day will be equally 
dark; the light of the stars will be extinguished 
one by one. Millions of ages will roll like mighty 
billows surging in time’s boundless sea, and with 
the lapse of illimitable aeons, the face of the 
universe will be changed. Suns and worlds, cold 
and dead, colliding with other decrepit spheres, 
will be shattered to the primal fire-mist and give 
birth to solar systems, which, through myriads 
of ages of evolution will become brilliant suns 
and fruitful worlds. New moons will take their 
places in the heavens. Day and night will be born 
again. Animals and plants, called to life by 
Nature’s laws of growth, will again fill the 
worlds. Other millions of ages will pass away, 
and when Time’s cycle is again complete, dark¬ 
ness and death will again ensue; the corridors 
of space will again resound with the crashing of 
extinct orbs, giving birth to nebulae and presag¬ 
ing once more the rhythmic coming of suns and 
planets clothed with luxurious vegetation and 

crowned with animal life in all its forms. So the 

173 


IS THERE A LIFE AFTER DEATH? 


work of Nature—the eternal builder, the ever¬ 
lasting destroyer—will go on forever. Form 
taking shape in the formless; life arising from 
the dust; death everywhere overtaking life; and 
in the end chaos with the potential power and 
the promise of the new order. 

And where shall we be while this awful drama 
of Nature’s endless change is being enacted on 
a stage as wide as the infinite vast, in a time that 
is eternal? When our bodies and brains have 
been melted to vapor a thousand times over in 
the crash and heat of colliding suns, shall our 
poor, naked, and unprotected souls still be oc¬ 
cupying some icy region among the waxing and 
waning stars and gazing still with unsatified eyes 
upon the infinite wonder of the changing scene? 
While the Universe is everywhere dying, shall 
we live on forever? Forever! Who would choose 
to live for that infinite time? Eternity! Do we 
know what this awful word must mean? To live 
for eternity! The collective intelligence of all 
the worlds can not conceive in millionth part the 
meaning of that appalling thought. Immortal 
life! The mind reels and falls beneath the weight 
of the crushing contemplation. Immortality! 
The thought repels the weary soul that longs to 
be at rest in the undisturbed sleep of the tranquil 
grave. 


174 



* 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADIC¬ 
TIONS IN THE BIBLE 

I believe we ought to know the truth about 
the Bible. If the Bible is true, the truth cannot 
harm it. If the Bible is not true, the world 
should be so informed. If we have not the right 
to know the truth about that book, who has the 
right to know it? If we have not the right to 
tell that truth, who has the right to tell it? If 
the time has not come to face this intellectual 
question in a fearless, intellectual way, when shall 
that time arrive? Has not ignorance ruled the 
world long enough? Has not superstition had 
her day of rioting in the human brain? 

We live in a new age. New knowledge and 
new hope are flooding the world with the light 
of new ideals. We build better as we learn more. 
Our time demands intellectual democracy. The 
prosperity of the world depends upon wide¬ 
spread knowledge and freedom; and the greater 
the number of free minds, the greater the number 
of free men. 

The Bible is still the greatest of enslavers. 
It is still a fetter on the brain of millions who 
believe in it, and a lock on the lips of millions 

who have outgrown its myths and follies. Many 

175 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


are prevented from engaging in scientific studies 
by their fear of disagreeing with the Bible; 
many dare not express their honest thought for 
fear that believers in the Bible will visit them 
with political, social, or financial loss. 

Even the clergy are the bondmen of their 
own book! There is not a preacher in any 
orthodox church who can tell the truth about the 
Bible and retain his position. His salary depends 
upon his silence concerning all that differs from 
the creed. The preacher must stifle his doubts. 
If he is intelligent, he must preach what he does 
not believe. In this way, the church is the great 
creator of hypocrisy, and the Bible, the Paper 
Pope of the Protestants, is a barrier to the pro¬ 
gress of the world. 

For this reason the truth about the Bible 
should be told. Every man and every woman 
should know what that book is, and what it is not. 
There is no virtue in hugging a delusion. False¬ 
hood cannot be a firm foundation. A lie cannot 
be holy even though it is old and sanctified. 
Let us know the truth! Let us stand erect in 
the presence of the Bible and ask it to reveal its 
real character. 

Strictly speaking, the Bible is not a book; it 
is a literature—the collected writings of a nation. 
Its many parts were written at various times 
during the interval of a thousand years. How 
many its writers were, or who they were, we do 

176 


IN THE BIBLE 


not know. But we do know that it abounds in 
miracles and magic; that it is utterly unscien¬ 
tific; and that it is so full of contradictions that 
almost anything can be proved from its pages. 

We know, too, that the doctrine of inspira¬ 
tion was invented by Jewish and Christian 
priests. The Bible presents no better claim to 
be considered the word of God than the Vedas, 
the Zend-Avesta, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, 
or any one of many other books regarded by 
their believers as the revelation of heaven. 

If the Bible were the word of God, it would 
be a perfect book. It would be consistent with 
itself and in accord with the facts of nature. 
God could not contradict himself and remain 
God. Contradiction is human; Deity must be in¬ 
fallible. A contradiction betrays a limitation of 
knowledge—a conflict of opinion. Where there 
is contradiction, there is antagonism of thought 
—a warfare of mind against mind. Both terms 
of a contradiction cannot be true; but they may 
both be false. 

Christianity claims that the Bible is absolutely 
true, and that it is sinful to disbelieve it. As a 
matter of fact, it contains more contradictions 
than any other book any Christian ever saw; 
and these contradictions prove—if they prove 
anything—that its writers did not believe one 
another. 

A brief discourse cannot discuss all the con- 

177 



ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


tradictions of the Bible; but to deal with about 
a hundred of them should and will enable you 
to draw your own conclusions as to the doctrine 
of inspiration, and the sincerity or intelligence 
of the orthodox clergy. 

In the first chapter of Genesis, there is a 
legendary account of the creation. In the second 
chapter, beginning with the fourth verse, there 
is another account. These legends contradict 
each other at every point. In the first, the earth 
is represented as coming into existence com¬ 
pletely enveloped in water. In the second, it is 
represented as being originally a dry plain, lack¬ 
ing even moisture. 1 According to the first ac¬ 
count, all the fowls of the air were created out 
of water—“and God said, Let the waters bring 
forth abundantly the moving creature that hath 
life, and fowl that may fly above the earth”. . . 
and the waters brought forth “every wfinged 
fowl after his kind.” But according to the 
second account, the fowls were created out of the 
ground—“And out of the ground the Lord God 
formed every beast of the field, and every fowl 
of the air.” 2 The first story has it that the 
trees were made on the third day, and that man 
was formed three days later. The second story 
declares that man was made before the trees. 3 
If the first account is true, the fowls were 

1. Gen. 1:2, 9; 2:6 2. Gen. 1:20,21; 2:19 

3. Gen. 1:12,13, 26-31; 2:7,9. 

178 


IN THE BIBLE 


created before man. If tbe second is correct, they 
were created after man. 4 The first tale dis¬ 
tinctly teaches that man was created after all 
the beasts. The second is as positive in its as¬ 
surance that man was formed before the beasts. 5 
In the first account, we are .told that man and 
woman were created at the same time, by one 
act of creation, and after all other things had 
been made. In the second story, it is explained 
that the man was made alone; that the woman 
was not formed until the man had failed to find 
a wife among the beasts, and that the making of 
the man, before the beasts, and of the woman, 
after the beasts, constituted two distinct acts of 
creation. 6 According to the first account, the 
man and the woman were given the freedom of 
the world, and were told to subdue it. Accord¬ 
ing to the second, they were confined within the 
narrow limits of a garden. 7 Bead the first ac¬ 
count with care, and you will observe that in it 
the creator is always called “God.” Read the 
second story, and you will see that he is invar¬ 
iably called “Lord God.” 8 

What is the meaning of all these contradic¬ 
tions? Simply this: two writers, both ignorant 
of the facts of nature, have endeavored, seriously 
or in romance, to account for the origin of the 
world. Poetic fancy has woven myths out of 

4. Gen. 1:21,27; 2:7,19 7. Gen. 1:28; 2:15 

5. Gen. 1:25,27; 2:7,19 8. Gen. 1:1 to 23; 2:4 

6. Gen. 1:25,27: 2:7, 20-22 

179 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


ignorance. Knowing nothing of what the first 
man had guessed, the second wrote down what he 
supposed, and he wrote in such a way that, had 
he written with the express purpose of contra¬ 
dicting all the first man said, he could not have 
succeeded more admirably. Honest people who 
know very little about science, and theologians 
who are well informed in scientific matters, tell 
us that Genesis and geology agree to perfection. 
The truth is that the two stories in Genesis de¬ 
stroy each other; and both are worthless in the 
light of science. The world and its forms of life 
have been produced by a slow process of evolu¬ 
tion, and there never was any miraculous 
creation. 

» 

In the seventh chapter of Genesis, at the 
second verse, it is stated that Noah was com¬ 
manded to take into the ark seven males and 
seven females of all clean beasts. In the fifth 
verse, we are assured that Noah did as he was 
told. But in the eighth and ninth verses, it is 
stated that of clean beasts there went into the 
ark only two and two—a male and a female. 9 

According to the ninth chapter, the murderer 
must die; yet God “set a mark upon Cain, lest 
any finding him should kill him.” 10 The ninth 
chapter also says: “Every moving thing that 
liveth shall he meat for you;” but the fourteenth 
chapter of Deuteronomy gives a list of animals, 

10. Gen. 9:5,6; Gen. 4:15 
180 


9. Gen. 7:2,5; Gen. 7:8,9 


IN THE BIBLE 


birds and fish that we must not eat. 11 

To Abraham, God is represented as having 
said: 6 ‘ This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, 
between me and you and thy seed after thee; 
every man child among you shall he circum¬ 
cised. ’ ’ But a gentleman of the name of St. Paul, 
writing in the Epistle to the Galatians, knew 
more about circumcision than God, and therefore 
wrote: “ Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if 
ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you noth¬ 
ing. ’ ,12 

We are told that the Bible is God’s inspired 
word, and that it points out the way of salvation; 
and yet the Bible itself abolishes the word of 
God, and declares that those who do as God com¬ 
mands cannot be saved! The same inspired 
book assures us that God promised Abraham all 
the land of Canaan, and that he gave him none 
of it whatever; 13 that Abraham had a wife whose 
name was Keturah; that Keturah was only his 
concubine ; 14 that Abraham had two sons, 
Ishmeal and Isaac; that Isaac was Abraham’s 
only son; 15 that Abraham bought a burying- 
place from the sons of Emmor; that the sepul¬ 
cher was bought, not by Abraham, but by Jacob. 16 
If you should fail to see the beautiful harmony 
in all these contradictions, remember that, ac- 

11. Gen. 9:3, Deut. 14:7,19 12. Gen. 17:10; Gal. 5:2 

13. Gen. 17:8; Acts 7:5 14. Gen. 25:1; I Chron. 1:32 

15. Gen. 16:15; 21:3; Heb. 11:17 

16. Acts 7:16; Josh. 24:32 


181 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


cording to the church, it is because you are 
carnally minded, and lacking in spiritual dis¬ 
cernment ! 

If the Bible were a revelation from God, it 
would surely be consistent in what it has to say 
of God. Every statement would agree with 
every other statement, and every attribute and 
quality described would unite in the portrayal of 
a character clearly distinguishable, easily under¬ 
stood, and infinitely grand. But as to the nature, 
character and conduct of God, the Bible asserts 
only to deny, and describes only to destroy. In 
the Old Testament, God is like a man—he walks 
and talks and eats and mingles with men of 
affairs. In the New, he is a spirit, and his ever¬ 
lasting seat is heaven’s throne. 

In Exodus 33:20, God is made to say: “Thoia 
canst not see my face; for there shall no man 
see me and live.” This is contradicted in Gen¬ 
esis 32:30, where Jacob declares: “I have seen 
God face *to face and my life is preserved.” 17 
God must have been mistaken. To look him in 
the face was not sure death. Jacob looked on his 
visage, and Jacob’s health remained unimpaired. 
God was seen by others also. In the twenty- 
fourth chapter of Exodus, we read: ‘‘Then went 
up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 
seventy of the elders of Israel; and they saw the 
God of Israel. . . They saw God and did eat 

17. Gen. 32:30; Ex. 33:20 


182 


IN THE BIBLE 


and drink.” This, however, is declared to be 
false in John 1:18—“No man hath seen God at 
any time.” How shall we decide? For my part, 
I agree with John. 18 The probabilities are his 
way. An infinite God could better employ his 
time than in wandering through the universe 
every little while to converse with some barbar¬ 
ians in Palestine; and it ought to be safe to as¬ 
sume that a God would choose better company. 
Why should he be engaged in performing tricks 
of magic in the Syrian desert for a tribe of 
polygamous nomads, when he might have been 
talking to the Wise Men of Greece? 

Where does God dwell? “Dwelling in the 
light which no man can approach unto,” says 1 
Timothy 6:16. Not so, declares 1 Kings 8:12— 
“The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick 
darkness.” These statements cannot both be 
true. 19 Dazzling light and total darkness are 
opposite extremes. God cannot dwell in both. 
It is indeed taught in one of the Psalms that God 
is omnipresent. “Whither shall I flee from thy 
presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art 
there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art 
there. If I take the wings of the morning, and 
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even 
there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand 
shall hold me.” But in Genesis, the Psalmist 

18. Ex. 24:9,10,11; John 1:18 

19, I Tim. 6:16; I Kings 8:12 

183 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


is contradicted. God is not omnipresent; 
he moves from place to place. “And the 
Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and 
Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very 
grievous, I will go down now, and see whether 
they have done altogether according to the cry 
of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will 
know.” 20 The God of the Psalmist filled the 
universe with his presence. The writer of Gen¬ 
esis believed in a local tribal God of personal 
form—a God whose knowledge was limited like 
that of a human being, and who walked about 
the earth in the role of Sherlock Holmes. 

Think of an infinite God. dowered with the 

knowledge of all the worlds, appointing himself 

as a Vice Commission and going to a little village 

to study its social affairs! Think of his saying: 

“I will go and see; and if not, I mil know!” 

Those who believe in inspiration surely lack the 

sense of humor. Orthodoxv is solemn and 

•/ 

stupid. Heresy thinks and smiles. 

Matthew tells us that “with God all things 
are possible.” The Book of Judges disagrees. 
It holds in chapter one, verse nineteen, that God 
is not almighty—“And the Lord was with 
Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the 
mountain; but could not drive out the inhabit¬ 
ants of the valley, because they had chariots of 
iron.” 21 If the omnipotent God could not prevail 

20. Psalm 139:7-10; Gen. 18:20,21 

21. Matt. 19:26; Judges 1:19 

184 


IN THE BIBLE 


against a few carts cased with metal, what would 
happen to him if he attacked a modern battle¬ 
ship? If we say that God is all-powerful, does 
our statement become inspired when we explain 
that his strength was baffled by a human device? 

In Exodus 31:17, God is represented as being 
like a man, inasmuch as work tires him and he 
is refreshed with rest—“For in six days the 
Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh 
day he rested and was refreshed.” According to 
Isaiah, this is not true. Isaiah will allow no 
such contemptible weakness to limit the glory of 
his God. In the fortieth chapter of his book, he 
exclaims: “Hast thou not heard that the ever¬ 
lasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of 
the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.” 22 To 
be tired, to need rest, to he refreshed, are human 
attributes—the qualities of beings capable of 
change. An infinite God must be unchangeable— 
he cannot tire; he cannot be refreshed. Isaiah 
makes this claim for God, but Exodus denies it. 

Moreover, we have the express testimony of 
Scripture that God does not change. In James 
1:17, we read of “the Father of lights, with 
whom is no variableness, neither shadow of 
turning.” This, however, is sweepingly contra¬ 
dicted in Jonah 3:10. It is there shown that God 
does change—“And God repented of the evil 
that he had said that he would do unto them; and 


22. Ex. 31:17; Is. 40:28 


185 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


he did it not.” 23 Again, we are confidently as¬ 
sured in Numbers 23:19, that “God is not a man, 
that he should lie; neither the son of man, that 
he should repent.” But so heartily does God 
disagree with those who say he does not change, 
that in Jeremiah 15:6 he volunteers this striking 
information: “I am weary with repenting.” 
How human is this confession! 24 Imagine an 
infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God avowing 
himself to be “weary with repenting”! Is God 
a being of narrowly limited intelligence ? Does 
he lack resolution and self-reliance? Is he of 
fickle disposition—inconstant and uncertain? If 
he is not, then he never was “weary with repent¬ 
ing.” 

Does God know the hearts of men? The 
question is fair; the answer should be exact. 
How does the Bible answer? It tells us that he 
does, and that he does not. In Acts we read: 
“Thou Lord which knowest the hearts of all 
men.” The contrary is found in Deuteronomy, 
where it is said that God led the Jews forty 
years in the wilderness, to humble them, to prove 
them, and to know what was in their hearts. 25 
God either knows the hearts of men, or he does 
not. If he does, the statement in the eighth 
chapter of Deuteronomy is not true; of he does 
not, then he is not a real God, but a myth. 

28. James 1:17; Jonah 3:10 24. Num. 23:19; Jer. 15:6 
25. Acts 1:24; Deut. 8:2 


186 


IN THE BIBLE 


Perhaps it is a peculiarity of inspiration, not 
only to defy the laws of logic, but to prove the 
truth of its assertions by denying them! 

The same inspired book informs us that God 
is generous with his gifts—“If any of you lack 
wisdom,” says James, “let him ask of God, that 
giveth to all men liberally.” If God gives to all 
men liberally, how can it be that he renders 
some men incapable of receiving his good things, 
to deprive them of his blessings? If John tells 
the truth, that is what he does—“He hath blinded 
their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they 
should not see with their eyes, nor understand 
with their heart, and be converted and I should 
heal them.” 26 Can this be real? If God wants 
men to know his truth, why should he blind their 
eyes? If he desires their conversion, why should 
he harden their hearts? On the other hand, if 
God has no message for the world, if he is in¬ 
different as to human fate, what is the mission 
of the Bible? What is the meaning of 
Christianity ? 

We read in Deuteronomy that “God is a con¬ 
suming fire,” and in John that “God is love.” 27 
Reason fails to conceive of a God who is either; 
but how great is the contrast here! A consum¬ 
ing fire is a wave of ruin. It advances to destroy. 
Home, wealth and life turn to ashes in its path. 
Behind its awful sweep there is but death and 

26. James 1:5; John 12:40 27. Deut. 4:24; I John 4:1 

187 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


desolation. How different is love—the tenderest 
passion of the human soul! Love raises the 
mind to lofty aims, and fills the heart with joy. 
Finding its ideal in the true, the beautiful and 
the good, it grows in likeness to the things it 
worships. It is the noblest of the virtues, and all 
its asperations are as pure as the silver stream 
from the morning sun. A God who could be 
likened unto a consuming fire would be a fero¬ 
cious fiend; a God of love would be a tender 
father. 

Although Deuteronomy holds such a terrible 
opinion of God, it tells us in a later chapter that 
he is “a God of truth and without iniquity, 
just and right.” Yet this same book declares in 
its fourteenth chapter, that God gave the Jews 
the following commandment: “Ye shall not eat 
of anything that dietli of itself: thou shalt give 
it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he 
may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien .” 28 
Such a precept is offered as evidence that God 
is “just and right”—is it? A God who is 
“without iniquity” said: “Do not eat the flesh 
of an ox that died of itself; but sell it to an 
alien”—did he? Is it really probable that God 
ever uttered such a command? Is it not more 
reasonable to believe that some pious Israelite, 
with an economic turn of mind, did not like to 
eat carrion himself and hated to miss the profit 
28. Deut. 32:4; 14:21 


188 




IN THE BIBLE 


it would bring, and so claimed divine authority 
for selling Embalmed Beef? 

In the nineteenth Psalm it is said that, “The 
law of the Lord is perfect. . . . The statutes of 
the Lord are right. . . . The commandment of 
the Lord is pure.” If this is true, God cannot 
be the author of evil. But according to Isaiah, 
it is not true. In his forty-fifth chapter, Isaiah 
makes God contradict the Psalmist—“I make 
peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these 
things.’ ’ Amos stands with Isaiah—“Shall 
there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not 
done it ?” 29 So, my Christian friend, the next 
time you hear your preacher blaming the devil 
for the evil of the world, do not forget to remind 
him that, according to the Bible, God is the 
creator of evil. 

When we ask the Scriptures what they have 
to say as to the attitude of God toward peace 
and war, we are answered with another contra¬ 
diction. “The God of peace,” says Romans; 
not so, says Exodus, “The Lord is a man of 
war .” 30 

But is not God kind and merciful? Does he 
not soothe the troubled brow of age with the 
calming consciousness of his protecting care? 
Does he not smile with pity on the tender help¬ 
lessness of the prattling babe? And does he not 

29. Psalm 19:7,8; Is. 45:7; Amos 8:6 

30. Rom. 15:83; Ex. 15:3 


189 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


fill with the sunshine of his wondrous love the 
Borrowing mother’s aching heart! Oh, yes— 
“The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies 
are over all his works.” Oh, no—such is the 
cruelty of God that no human need can stop or 
stay the march of his destructive fury. Con¬ 
template these frightful words: “Now go and 
smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they 
have, and spare them not; but slay both man 
and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, 
camel and ass .” 31 Was ever a more heartless 
command issued by the chief of a cannibal tribe! 

Slay the old man with trembling hands and 
silvered hair; murder the mother who shields 
with her body the life of her child; rifle the 
cradle, and plunge the glittering sword of death 
through the frail form of the smiling babe; kill 
even the cattle that feed in their stalls, and know, 
ye fiends of ruthless slaughter, ye but fulfill the 
command of the God whose “mercy endureth 
forever!” Such is the consistency of the Bible. 

Let us, however, guard ourselves against 
taking these things too seriously. No God ever 
commanded massacre. We are simply dealing 
with the contradictions in the religious literature 
of an uncivilized people. To call such writings 
the inspired word of an all-wise Deity is an in¬ 
sult to the meanest intelligence! 

We come now to God’s anger. “His anger 

31. Psalm 145:9; I Sam. 15:3 

190 


IN THE BIBLE 


endureth but a moment,” says the Psalmist. 
This is denied without reserve in Jeremiah 17:4 
—“Ye have kindled a fire in mine anger which 
shall burn forever.” 32 Forever! A very long 
moment indeed! What a unique disposition— 
forever angry! An immortal grouch! Of course, 
a real God could not be angry. Anger necessi¬ 
tates a change of mind. The Infinite could not 
change. What is called the anger of God is 
but the ignorance of man. 

Does God ever tempt his children? James 
avers that he does not—“Let no man say when 
he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God can¬ 
not be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he 
any man.” In spite of this, Genesis insists that 
God does tempt—“And it came to pass after 
these things that God did tempt Abraham.” 33 
How perfect is the consistency of inspiration! 
How could anybody but a wicked unbeliever 
doubt the divine origin of such a harmonious 
book! 

Let us take another step. Is God truthful? 
Certainly we do not raise this question: it is 
asked merely because it is suggested by another 
contradiction in the Bible. In Numbers there is 
the emphatic affirmation that “God is not a man 
that he should lie.” We can heartily agree with 
that statement. It is easy to believe that men 
have lied about God; in fact, we find many such 

32. Psalm 30:5; Jer. 17:4 33. James 1:13; Gen. 22:1 

191 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


lies in the Bible, but it is hard to believe that 
God would lie. We will, however, let the Bible 
answer. The twenty-second chapter of First 
Kings is certain that God does lie—“Now, there¬ 
fore, behold, the Lord hath-put a lying spirit in 
the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord 
hath spoken evil concerning thee. ” 34 In many 
other passages, God is represented as employing 
falsehood. If these passages are true, can God 
be worthy of respect? If they are false, can the 
Bible be inspired? 

The Jewish religion was founded on sacrifice. 
When a man or a woman committed a sin, that 
sin had to be atoned for by the killing of an 
animal; that is to say, by a contribution to the 
larder of the priests. The altars of Jehovah 
ran red with blood. The smoke that rose from 
the burning flesh of lambs and bulls was incense 
in the nostrils of Israel’s God. In Exodus, it is 
commanded: “And thou shalt offer every day a 
bullock for a sin offering for atonement.” 
Numerous chapters of the Old Testament are 
devoted to the most minute details concerning 
these sacrifices. Take away from the Bible these 
offerings and sacrifices of rams, and doves, and 
bulls, and the religion of the Jews cannot be 
understood. And yet, in the seventh chapter of 
Jeremiah, the whole sacrificial system of the 
Jews is repudiated; its divine origin is denied; 

34. Num. 23:19; I Kings 22:23 

192 


IN THE BIBLE 


and God declares that he never approved of it 
—“For I spake not unto your fathers, nor com¬ 
manded them in the day that I brought them out 
of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings 
or sacrifices.” And in these impassioned words, 
Isaiah denounces the sacrifical system: “ To what 
purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto 

me? saith the Lord. When ye come to 

appear before me, who hath required this at 
your hand? .... Bring no more vain obla¬ 
tions; incense is an abomination unto me.” 35 

Consider the importance of this contradiction. 
In the chief books of the Old Testament—in the 
Pentateuch, the books of the Law—God is repre¬ 
sented as the founder of an elaborate system of 
sacrifices; in chapter after chapter he is repre¬ 
sented as giving the most precise instructions as 
to how the animals were to be killed, and what 
was to be done with their blood, their fat, and 
their flesh. But in the works of his leading pro¬ 
phets, all this is declared to be “vain” and an 
“abomination,” and is utterly swept away 'by 
the very God who is said to have been its author! 

And this is called inspiration! God himself— 
according to the Bible—declares whole sections 
of the Bible to be false, yet man, in his stupid 
ignorance, hugs these falsehoods to his bosom, 
and in spite of God holds them to be inspired! 

And what shall we say of the human sacrifices 

35. Ex. 29:36; Jer. 7:22; Is. 1:11-13 

193 




ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


which the Bible commands? I know that in Deu¬ 
teronomy the Jews are warned against sacrific¬ 
ing their sons and daughters. But in the last 
chapter of Leviticus human sacrifices are upheld 
in a very positive manner. It is there written 
that “no devoted thing, that a man shall devote 
unto the Lord of all that he hath, both of man 
and beast, and of the field of his possession, 

shall be sold or redeemed.but shall surely 

be put to death.” 36 All living things devoted to 
God had to be sacrificed; human beings were de¬ 
voted to him; therefore, human sacrifices formed 
a part of the worship of Jehovah. That human 
sacrifices were a part of the Jewish religion is 
further proved by Abraham’s preparation to 
sacrifice Isaac, by Jephthah’s sacrifice of his 
daughter, and by David’s sacrifice of the seven 
sons of Saul. 

Every man who has studied this question is 
aware that for ages the Jewish people, in their 
frightful superstition, immolated their children 
to appease their phantom God. If the Bible 
proves anything, it proves that the religion of the 
Jews was to the Jews at once a curse and a 
crime. Yet we are asked to believe that the 
blood-stained record of that religion, dictated by 
ignorance, superstition and fanaticism, is the 
infallible revelation of a God of love! How 
absurd is superstition! How audacious is ig- 

36. Deut. 12:30,31; Lev. 27:28,29 

194 


IN THE BIBLE 


noranee when perverated by an idiotic creed! 

The New Testament is built upon the Old. 
The God who demanded human blood is the God 
if they would use their reason, if they would 
barbaric myth, the God to whom the Christians 
pray does not exist. 

If Christians would be honest with themselves, 
if they would use their reason, if they would 
read the Bible without prejudice, and weigh its 
conflicting statements in the balance of common 
sense, they would become convinced that it is not 
a revelation, but the record of a nation’s slow 
and painful progress form barbarism to civiliza¬ 
tion. 

6 ‘The Bible is the best of all books,” says the 
believer, “because it teaches that there is to be 
a resurrection and a future life.” Well, before 
we make sure about this matter, let us see what 
the Bible has to say about it. According to John, 
the hour is coming, in which all that are in the 
graves shall hear his voice, and shall come 
forth.” The assurance is explicit. If these 
words are true, there is to be a resurrection from 
the dead. Are they true! Job affirms that they 
are not—“As the cloud is consumed and van- 
isheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave 
shall come up no more.” 37 Language could not 
be plainer. Job denies the resurrection with all 
the emphasis of conviction. Still more, we are 

37. John 5:28,29; Job 7:9; Eccl. 3:19-22; 9:5 

195 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


told in Ecclesiastes than man has no preeminence 
above the beast; that man and beast enjoy the 
same breath; that they die the same death; that 
both return to the dust whence they came, and 
that a man’s portion is the enjoyment of his 
works in this world. And is it not declared in 
the same book that ‘ ‘ the dead know not anything, 
neither have they any more a reward?” The 
Old Testament denies immortality in language 
that is clear and emphatic. The New teaches it, 
only to make it an endless agony for nearly all 
the children of men! 

From the many contradictions so far reviewed 
—contradictions that destroy the most vital 
doctrines of the Bible—contradictions that no 
ingenuity can explain away—contradictions that 
make the dogma of inspiration look like a depart¬ 
ure from sanity—contradictions that prove, be¬ 
yond the hope of doubt, that the Bible is a 
human book—from all these contradictions arises 
the question: Where is the harmony in the Bible? 
What does it affirm that it does not deny? And 
yet we have but touched the fringe of the Bible’s 
inconsistency. We have had but a glimpse of the 
true character of the book that contains more 
contradictions than any other book the world 
has ever known. 

Take up your Bible and read it. Read it as 
you would read any other book—with your eyes 

open, with your reasoning faculties awake, and 

196 


* 



IN THE BIBLE 


with your mind determined to be honest. You 
will find in it all the contradictions that have 
been mentioned, and you will find hundreds more. 
You will find that because of man’s wickedness, 
God drowned the world, and that for the same 
reason he resolved never to drown it again; 88 
that God is no respector of persons, and that he 
hated Esau and loved Jacob before the brothers 
were born; 39 that the children shall suffer for 
the sins of their parents, and that no one shall 
bear any sins but his own; 40 that the Sabbath is 
holy and must be kept by all, and that every man 
must decide for himself whether any day is holy 
or not; 41 that certain men devoted to God must 
wear long hair, and that the wearing of long hair 
is a shame; 42 that it is wrong to judge others, 
and that others must be judged; 43 that we must 
never swear at all, and that we must always 
swear by the God of truth; 44 that a man may 
divorce his wife for one reason only, and that 
he may divorce her for any reason whatever; 45 
that the Christian must honor his father and 
mother, and that he must hate his father and 
mother; 46 that the sin against the Holy Ghost 
will never be forgiven, and that those who believe 
in Christ “are justified from all things.” 47 

38. Gen. 6:5-7; 8:21 41. Ex. 20:8; Rom. 14:5 

39. Rom. 2:11; 9:13 42. Num. 6:5; I Cor. 11:14 

40. Ex. 20:5; Ezek. 18:20 43. Matt. 7:1; I Cor. 6:2-4 

44. Matt. 5:34; Is. 65:16 

45. Matt. 5:32; Deut. 21:14; 24:1 

46. Ex. 20:12; Luke 14:26 47. Mark 3:29; Acts 13:39 

197 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


You see, it will not do to press the Bible too 
closely for consistency. Being an inspired book, 
perhaps it ought not to be consistent. If it were 
consistent, it might be reasonable; and, being 
reasonable, we might believe it to have been 
written by men, since we acknowledge that men 
have written many reasonable books. When a 
thing is consistent and reasonable, we do not say 
it is inspired—we say it is logical, natural, and 
it may be that when a thing is inconsistent and 
unreasonable, we ought to call it divine! 

Reason repudiates revelation. All that is 
natural, reasonable and true is a part of science. 
The unnatural, the unreasonable and the false 
belong to religion’s realm of fancy. 

Are we through with the contradictions of 
the Bible? Certainly not. “For there is no man 
that sinneth not,” says I Kings. In other words, 
we are all sinners. But John does not believe 
this. In his first Epistle, he argues that, “Who¬ 
soever abideth in him sinneth not. . . . He that 
committeth sin is of the devil.” 48 According to 
John, there are some who do not sin. According 
to Kings, there are none. Let us see how this 
works out. If we are all sinners, and if all sin¬ 
ners are of the devil, then we are all of the devil 
—Christians and Freethinkers, sinners and 
saints. If Christians are “of the devil” only 
when they commit sins, and if they become the 

48. I Kings 8:46; I John 3:6-8 

198 


IN THE BIBLE 


children of God, and “abide in him,” after each 
forgiveness, then it is evident that the average 
Christian changes his spiritual fathers a good 
many times a year! 

We are told in the ninetieth Psalm, at verse 
ten, that “ the days of our years are three score 
years and ten.” But hold a while—that is not 
true, for is it not written in Genesis six and 
three, that man’s “days shall be an hundred and 
twenty years”? Of course a small matter like 
fifty years ought not to make a noticeable dif¬ 
ference in the life of the average man! We may 
therefore allow that trifle to pass as another 
evidence of inspiration. 49 

If we could believe the Bible, we might rest 
assured that the good man has nothing to 
fear, since Proverbs avows that “there shall 
no evil happen to the just.” But the sacred 
book cannot be trusted, for the case of Job con¬ 
tradicts the proverb. God acknowledged that 
Job was so perfect and upright, that there was 
“none like him in the earth”; and yet he deliver¬ 
ed him up to the tender mercies of the devil, who 
smote him “with sore boils from the sole of his 
foot to his crown.” 50 It would be interesting to 
hear some clergyman explain why God and the 
devil were on such friendly terms; why God, the 
infinitely good, abandoned Job, his most devoted 
worshipper, to the cruelty of his enemy, the 

49 Psalm 90:10; Gen. 6:3 50. Prov. 12:21; Job 2:3-7 

199 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


devil; and why the virtuous Job was tortured 
by the vicious devil under the supervision of a 
righteous God! 

Is not God a friend to his friends? Does he 
not shield the innocent from harm? The Psalmist 
tells us that he does—“For the Lord loveth 
judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are 
preserved forever. . . . The wicked watcheth 
the righteous, and seeketh to slay him: The Lord 
will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him 
when he is judged. . . . Mark the perfect man, 
and behold the upright, for the end of that man 
is peace.” 

If these words were really true, if an infinite 
God stood guard over the welfare of the righte¬ 
ous, how different would be the history of the 
world! The worshippers of God have been 
robbed of their property and of their liberty by 
other worshippers of God. They have been im¬ 
prisoned in loathsome dungeons; stretched on 
racks of torture until their joints were torn 
apart; and burned alive at slow fires, cursed and 
jeered by hypocrites and fiends. All the outrages 
that wickedness could suggest, all the agonizing 
tortures that inhuman ingenuity could devise, 
have been inflected by believers in God upon the 
loving, the virtuous and the brave—upon those 
who yearned to bring into the world the reign of 
wisdom, peace and righteousness. In a world 
where those who sought for truth had their eyes 

200 


IN THE BIBLE 


extinguished, where those who uttered honest 
words had their tongues torn out, where those 
who fought for freedom had molten lead poured 
into their ears, where those who took the side of 
mercy had their legs crushed in iron boots—in 
such a world, where liberty was chained to the 
dungeon floor, where virtue perished in the 
flames, it will not do to say that God protects his 
friends from the cruel persecutions of their foes. 

While the groans of innocent suffering have 
pierced the clouds, God has been silent. While 
Christians tortured Christians with a zeal that 
was ferocious, the heavens have shown no sign 
of displeasure. 

The Pslamist was mistaken. God has for¬ 
saken the righteous. The wicked have triumphed 
over them. They have been condemned and 
slain. The Bible admits this. In Hebrews, we 
are told of what the early saints endured— 
“They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, 
were tempted, were slain with the sword; they 
wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, 
being destitute, afflicted, tormented. 9,51 

A God who leaves his saints to be “sawn 
asunder, ’ ’ and ‘ ‘ slain with the sword , 1 ’ certainly 
does not deliver them from the hands of the 
wicked! Peter seems to have been ignorant of 
all this when he asked “Who is he that will 
harm you, if ye be followers of that which is 

51. Psalm 37:28,32,33,37; Heb. 11:37 

201 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


good?” But Paul was aware of God’s neglect, 
when he contradicted Peter—“Yea, and all that 
will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer 
persecution.” 52 

It is often proclaimed in churches, and set 
down in religious books, that the writers of the • 
Bible wrote as they were moved by the Holy 
Spirit. Now, if these contradictions are the 
work of a spirit, may we not inquire into the 
nature of this spirit ? What is he like ? And how 
does he affect human beings? We have it from 
Paul, in Galatians, that “the fruit of the spirit 
is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
goodness.” Very fine. That is one man’s 
opinion. Turn now to the fifteenth chapter of 
Judges, and you will find that when “the spirit 
of the Lord came mightily upon” Samson, “he 
slew a thousand men.” 58 Paul did not tell the 
whole truth. Perhaps he was not very well 
acquainted with the spirit. Be that as it may, in 
Samson’s case the fruit of the spirit was not 
love or goodness, but murder. The spirit was not 
satisfied with less than a thousand lives! If Paul 
is not mistaken, and if Judges is correct, the 
spirit must be endowed with a dual personality— 
possibly he is the original of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. 
Hyde—and if he is the real author of the Bible, 
his changing character might account for its 
many contradictions! 

As an historical book, the Bible stands alone. 

52. I Peter 3:13; 2 Tim. 3:12 

53. Gal. 5:22; Judges 15:14,15 

202 


IN THE BIBLE 


No secular historian has ever even tried to im¬ 
itate its style. The remarkable method by which 
the Scriptures teach history seems to be confined 
to inspiration. To appreciate my meaning, com¬ 
pare the sixteenth chapter of First Kings with 
the sixteenth chapter of Second Chronicles. 
From the first you will learn that Baasha, king 
of Israel, died, and was succeeded by his son 
Elah, in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of 
Asa, king of Judah. The second will tell you 
that in the thirty-sixth year of Asa, Baasha, king 
of Israel, came up against Judah. 54 A king dies 
and is buried; his son succeeds him on the throne; 
and yet, ten years later, the dead king, is still 
alive conducting a military campaign! In truth¬ 
ful histories dead men stay dead. According to 
the Bible, when a man dies, he is just getting 
ready to start trouble! 

Another peculiar contradiction deals with the 
age of Ahaziah. You will find it in the eighth 
chapter of Second Kings, and the twenty-second 
chapter of Second Chronicles. According to 
Kings, Jehoram died at the age of forty years, 
and was succeeded on the throne by his son 
Ahaziah, whose age was twenty-two. But if 
Chronicles is correct, Ahaziah was “forty and 
two years old when he began to regin.” 55 He 
was, therefore, two years older than his father! 
Of course we can readily understand how easily 

54. I Kings 16:6,8; 2 Chron. 16:1 

55. 2 Kings 8:17,24,26; 2 Chron. 21:20; 22:1,2 

203 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


a boy could be two years older than his father. 
You are probably acquainted with many such 
boys. The point of real difficulty in connection 
with the story is the statement that Ahaziah 
was his father’s youngest son; and it may be in 
place to ask: If a man’s youngest son can be two 
years older than his father, how much older than 
his father could the oldest son be? A little 
44 spiritual discernment” ought to enable the 
average preacher to answer this question. 

The historical quarrel between Samuel, Kings 
and Chronicles is continued through many 
chapters. According to Samuel, God tempted 
David to take a census of the people of Israel 
and Judah; according to Chronicles, it was the 
devil who tempted him; 56 Samuel declares thal 
David sinned in numbering the people; Kings 
insists that David never sinned except in the 
matter of Uriah; 57 Samuel holds that David paid 
for the threshing floor on which he offered sacri¬ 
fice to God after numbering the people, fifty 
shekels of silver; Chronicles has it that he paid 
for the place six hundred shekels of gold; 58 in 
Kings it is stated that Asa and Jehoshaphat did 
not abolish the places of idolatrous worship; in 
Chronicles it is maintained that they did abolish 
them. 59 

The number of contradictions in the Bible is 

56. 2 Sam. 24:1; I Chron. 21:1 

57. 2 Sam. 24:17, I Kings 15:5 

58. 2 Sam. 24:24; I Chron. 21:25 

59. I Kings 15:14; 22:43; 2 Chron. 14:5; 17:6 

204 


IN THE BIBLE 


simply bewildering. In reading it, one is amazed 
at the blindness and folly of mankind in regard¬ 
ing it as the perfect and inspired word of God. 
On one page it tells us that Moses was the 
meekest man of his time; on another, that he 
ordered women and children to be butchered in 
cold blood. 60 In one place it assures us that all 
the horses of the Egyptians died of the plague 
of murrain; in another, that all the horses of the 
Egyptian army were used in pursuit of the 
Jews. 61 It tell us that Elijah, in a chariot of fire, 
ascended into heaven, and it asserts that Christ 
is the onlv man who ever made that ascension; 62 
it speaks highly in favor of intoxicating liquors 
and it condemns them in language equally 
strong; 63 it teaches us to pray to avoid tempta¬ 
tion, and it tells us to hail temptation with joy; 64 
it praises wealth as a blessing and condemns it 
as though it were a blighting curse. 65 

Let any scientist, philosopher, or critic write 
a book; let that book contradict itself as the 
Bible does, and on the head of that writer, the 
world will pour out the full measure of its 
scorn, while his book will become a monument to 
the ignorance, folly and presumption of a man 
who took the human race for fools. 

Take another contradiction. Every normal 

human being is anxious to have a good name. 

To be favorably known, to be respected, to be 

60. Num. 12:3; Num. 31:17 61. Ex. 9:3,6; Ex. 14:9 

62. 2 Kings 2:11; John 3:13 63. Deut. 14:26; Prov. 20:1 
64. Matt. 6:13; James 1:12 65. Prov. 10:15; Lake 6*24 

205 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


recognized by all as honest, brave, and loving— 
what could be more pleasing than this? So far 
the Bible agrees—“A good name is better than 
precious ointment.” But according to Luke, a 
good name is a curse—“Woe unto you when all 
men shall speak well of you.” 66 Happy is the 
man who bears a good name; but, oh, the terrible 
calamities that shall befall him! Such is the 
logic of the Bible. Can it really be that the con¬ 
tempt of mankind is to be courted, rather than 
the love and approbation of one’s fellows? 

Who would exchange the wondrous name of 
Abraham Lincoln—the calm, logical, upright 
mind—the tender, loving, generous heart—serene 
in peace, heroic in war—freedom’s fearless 
friend—unmoved by the hatred of millions—care¬ 
less of the world’s applause—worshipping the 
ideal—anxious above all things to save a nation 
from disunion, to free a race from slavery’s 
chains—and at the last, crowning a life of virtue 
and devotion to the common good with the mel¬ 
ancholy laurel of the martyr—who would ex¬ 
change the name of Lincoln for that of Kaiser 
Wilhelm II, who plunged humanity into the most 
frightful of wars, made millions of martyrs and 
-widows and orphans, brought the nations to the 
very verge of ruin to gratify his vicious lust for 
empire, and then fled from his tottering throne 
to save his loathesome life from the hands of an 
outraged world? Who would make the exchange? 

66. Eccl. 7:1; Luke 6:26 


206 



IN THE BIBLE 


Lincoln is a wreath of glory on the brow of the 
race. The Hohenzollern is a poisoned arrow in 
a broken heart. Upon the one the world bestows 
its honor. In the presence of the other it 
stands aghast. In the different regard in 
which Lincoln and the Kaiser are held, we behold 
the verdict of mankind that the Bible utters 
arrant folly when it pronounces woe upon those 
who deserve a good name. 

Let it not be supposed that the contradictions 
of the Bible are chiefly in the Old Testament. 
The New has its full and rounded share. Ac¬ 
cording to Matthew, the father of Joseph was 
called Jacob, according to Luke his name was 
Heli; 67 Matthew traces the descent of Joseph 
through Solomon; Luke follows it through 
Nathan, Solomon’s brother; 68 Matthew can count 
only forty-one generations from Abraham to 
Jesus; Luke mentions fifty-six; 69 if Matthew is 
right, the angel announced the miraculous con¬ 
ception to Joseph; if Luke is correct, the annun¬ 
ciation was made to Mary; 70 the first Gospel 
teaches that Jesus was born when Herod was 
King of Judea; the third declares he was born 
when Cyrenius was governor of Syria—ten years 
after Herod’s death; 71 Matthew is sure that the 
child was hurried away by stealth to Egypt; 
Luke’s Gospel plainly shows that he was taken 

67. Matt. 1:16; Luke 3:23 68. Matt. 1:7; Luke 3:33 

69. Matt. 1:2-16; Luke 3:23-34 

70. Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:30,31 71. Matt. 2:1; Luke 2:2-7 

207 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


without fear to Jerusalem; 72 Mark assures us that 
three days after his baptism Jesus was in the 
wilderness with Satan; John explains that at that 
time he was attending a marriage feast an Cana, 73 
if Matthew was well informed, the centurion 
came in person to Jesus and begged of him to 
heal his servant; if Luke was not mistaken, the 
centurion did not come, but sent the elders of 
the Jews; 74 the first Gospel has it that Jesus was 
met by two men coming out of the tombs; the 
second states that he was met by only one; 75 
the first teaches that two blind men cried out to 
him from the wayside; the third informs us that 
only one man so addressed him. 76 

Search the New Testament for consistency, 
and you will search in vain. Everywhere you 
will find disagreement and denial. Rarely do 
two writers tell the same story. No man seems 
to have any real knowledge of his theme. Hear¬ 
say, half-remembered rumor, and pure invention 
make up the Gospel narratives. 

The writers not only contradict each other, 
they contradict themselves. Matthew makes 
Jesus say: “Let your light so shine before men 
that they may see your good works.’’ A little 
later, in the same sermon, he puts into his mouth 
the very opposite—“Take heed that ye do not 
your alms before men, to be seen of them.” 77 

72. Matt. 2:13,14; Luke 2:22,39 

73. Mark 1:12,13; John 2:1,2 

74. Matt. 8:5,6,7; Luke 7:3 75. Matt. 8:28; Mark 5:2 

76. Matt. 20:30; Luke 18:35-38 77. Matt. 5:16; 6:1 

208 


IN THE BIBLE 


John avows that Christ said: “I and my Father 
are one.” Afterwards he makes him say: “My 
Father is greater than I. ” 78 John also writes that 
Christ declared himself the judge of all men, and 
later acknowledged that he judged no man. 79 
Again, in John, Christ affirms: “If I bear witness 
of myself, my witness is not true,” while in the 
same Gospel he proclaims: “Though I bear 
record of myself, yet my record is true.” 80 

Who can understand these contradictions? 
Who can believe them inspired? In the whole 
story of Christ, there is nothing certain, clear 
and definite. He was all-powerful, and he was 
not. 81 He came to bring peace on earth, and he 
did not. 82 He favored and condemned the use 
of the sword. 83 He preached non-resistance, and 
practiced open attack. 84 He told men to love 
their enemies, and advised them to hate their 
friends. 85 In Matthew, Mark and Luke, salva¬ 
tion depends upon good works; in John it is 
the reward of faith. 86 . 

The accounts of the arrest, trial and cruci¬ 
fixion of Christ were written by men who did 
not know the facts. Matthew’s simple story of 
the arrest contradicts John’s statement that the 
arresting soldiers fell to the ground. 87 Matthew 
says that in his trial before Pilate, Christ spoke 


78. 

John 10:30; 14:28 

79. 

John 5:22; 

8:15 


80. 

John 5:31; 8:14 

81. 

Matt. 28:18; 

John 

5:30 

82. 

Luke 2:14; Matt. 

10:34 




83. 

Luke 22:36; Matt. 

26:52 84. 

Matt. 5:39; 

John 

2:15 

85. 

Matt. 5:44; Luke 

14:26 




86. 

Matt. 6:14; Luke 

6:35-37; 

John 3:36 




209 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


only two words—“Thou sayest”—and that 
Pilate marvelled at his not saying more; accord¬ 
ing to John, he made a speech to Pilate. 88 He 
was crucified at the third hour, if Mark was not 
mistaken; at the sixth hour, if Luke was well 
informed. 89 Mark declares that he was reviled 
by the two thieves crucified with him; Luke says 
that one thief railed on him and was rubuked by 
the other, w T ho acknowledged Christ’s innocence 
and also his divinity. 90 

Matthew says they gave him to drink “vine¬ 
gar mingled with gall;” Mark says it was “wine 
mingled with myrrh.” 91 According to John, he 
was crucified before the Passover; the other 
Gospels say it was after the Passover. 92 If 
John is correct, he was embalmed before he was 
buried; if Luke can be believed, he was not. 93 

How many women came to the sepulcher? 
John says one; Matthew two; Mark three; and 
Luke at least five. 94 The first Gospel says that 
Mary Magdalene met Jesus while on her way to 
tell the disciples; the fourth declares that she 
met him at the tomb. 95 According to Matthew, 
she knew him when she met him; according to 

87. Matt. 26:47-57; John 18:3-13 

88. Matt. 27:11; John 18:34,36,37 

89. Mark 15:25; Luke 23:44 

90. Mark 15:32; Luke 23:39-43 

91. Matt. 27:34; Mark 15:23 

92. John 19:14; Matt. 26:17-29 

93. John 19:39,40; Luke 23:52-56 

94. John 20:1; Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:10 

95. Matt. 28:9; John 20:11-16 

96. Matt. 28:9; John 20:15 97. Matt. 28:10; Luke 24:49 

210 


IN THE BIBLE 


John, she thought he was the gardener. 96 Mat¬ 
thew says that immediately after the resurrection 
the disciples were commanded to meet Christ in 
Galilee; Luke says they were told to tarry in the 
city of Jerusalem. 97 Therefore according to 
Matthew, they met him on a mountain in Galilee; 
while according to Luke, they met him in Jer¬ 
usalem. 98 The force of this contradiction lies in 
the fact that Galilee and Jerusalem are about a 
hundred miles apart! 

According to Luke, Christ ascended into 
heaven with his human body; yet Paul asserts 
that ‘ 4 flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom 
of God.” 99 Luke makes the ascension occur in 
the evening of the day of the resurrection; the 
Book of Acts explains that forty days after this 
Christ had not yet ascended. And Matthew, who 
knows nothing of the upward flight, quotes from 
Christ the following words that deny the ascen¬ 
sion altogether: 44 Lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world.” 100 

We have considered one hundred contradic¬ 
tions from the Bible. We have seen that it 
asserts only to deny, and builds only to destroy. 
It is a wilderness of conflict, an asylum of con¬ 
fusion, an intellectual pandemonium. It dis¬ 
cusses everything and settles nothing. It 
answers every question with a “yes” and a 
“no.” How can any man using his common 

98. Matt. 28:16,17; Luke 24:33-86 

99. Luke 24:39,42,43,50,51; I Cor. 15:50 

100. Luke 24:1-53; Acts 1:3; Matt. 28:20 

211 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


sense believe that such a book is sacred, inspired 
and true? How can he believe that such a book 
is the perfect word of an infinitely wise God? 
It is called a revelation. A revelation indeed! 
And what does it reveal? 

Can it be truly said that the Bible sheds the 
faintest glint of light on the existence, character 
and conduct of God ? How much have we learned 
about the God who has been seen by many, but 
whom no man has seen; the God who dwells in 
light, but whose home is enveloped in darkness; 
the God whose presence fills the countless worlds, 
but who moves about this tiny earth clothed in 
human form; the God who is all-powerful, but 
who retreats in defeat before a few charioteers; 
the God who tires, but who never grows weary; 
the God who is unchangeable, but who is weary 
with repenting? Let us be honest! 

What particular information about God can 
be derived from a book in which we are assured 
that he knows the hearts of men, and that he 
does not; that he gives his blessings freely, and 
that he does not; that he is just to all, and that 
he is not; that he creates evil, and that he does 
not; that he is kind and loving, while command¬ 
ing the murder of mothers and babes; and that 
his anger endures but a moment—a moment that 
lasts forever? Let us use our reason! 

And, surely, a God who tempts, and who does 
not tempt; who lies and who does not lie; who 

212 


IN THE BIBLE 


is peaceful, yet a man of war; who is absurdly 
fussy about the incense of smoking beasts, and 
who denounces such incense as an abomination; 
who sanctions and condemns human sacrifices— 
surely, such a God is not a real God, but a 
myth—a creature of the fancy—a child of 
superstition! 

Is it conceivable that a God of infinite wisdom 
came to earth and left behind him such a muti¬ 
lated, fragmentary and contradictory record as 
is contained in the four Gospels? If God spoke 
to man, he would have to address man’s reason. 
Man has no other faculty with which he could 
understand the message. And the fact that the 
Bible and the reason are at war—that reason at 
every crucial point contradicts the Bible’s 
claims—proves that the Bible is not the perfect 
word of God, but the fallible utterance of man. 

There are thousands of clergymen who are 
honest in their preaching—honest because they 
are not informed. Against these men I utter no 
word of reproach. They must live and learn. 
But what shall we say of the thousands of edu¬ 
cated preachers who are thoroughly familiar 
with the Bible, who know its glaring contradic¬ 
tions, its absurdities, its cruelties, its crimes, and 
who, nevertheless, continue to preach as though 
its every word were holy and divine! 

These men have really studied the Bible. 

Their library shelves are crowded with learned 

213 


ONE HUNDRED CONTRADICTIONS 


books that analyze and discuss it. They know, 
as every scholar knows, that the Bible is a col¬ 
lection of pamphlets and tracts; that these docu¬ 
ments represent the guesses and opinions of un¬ 
known men; that the volume was compiled by 
priests; and that the doctrine of inspiration 
gradually grew as a child of priestly invention 
to fortify priestly power. And knowing as they 
do that the Bible is a human book, they spend 
their lives in expounding insipid nonsense about 
it that educated intellect has everywhere out¬ 
grown. Why! Because they have families to 
support; because they fear to offend their 
friends; because, plainly, they are neither honest 
nor courageous. 

To tell the truth about the maze of contra¬ 
dictions in the Bible is to free the clergy, to 
liberalize their congregations, to destroy bigotry, 
to augment intellectual freedom, and to make it 
possible for men and women to be honest by en¬ 
larging the horizon of their neighbors’ minds. 
The tyranny of the Bible is due to its supposedly 
inspired character. A knowledge of its self- 
destroying contradictions will forever dispel 
that delusion, will shatter the shackles of the 
brain, drive out the phantoms of superstition’s 
night and herald the glorious dawn of truth! 


214 



INDEX 


Adonis, 75; his resurrection, 76 
Aesculapius, his resurrection, 75 
Anatomy, and brain function, 
149 

Animals worshipped as gods, 2 
Astronomy, 18-20 
Athanasian creed, 15 

Beethoven, his brain convolu¬ 
tions, 147 

Bible, the guesses of unknown 
men, 214; the enemy of 
mankind, 135 
Book of Mormon, 177 
Brahma, 3 
Brahmans, 157 

Bramwell, Dr. J. Milne, on 
Spiritualism, 162 
Buddha, his resurrection, 74 
Buddhism, its members, 77 

Cannibalism, approved by the 
Bible, 127 
Cassels, Walter R., on late date 
of Gospels, 44 
Catacombs, 55 
Cells, our bodies composed of, 
141 

Chadwick, Rev. John W., 98 
Cheating, sanctioned by the 
Bible, 110 

Clifford, Prof. W. K., 144 
Chrishna, his resurrection, 74 
Christ, time of his brith un¬ 
known, 47; life of for thirty 
years a blank, 50; virgin birth 
of unknown to Paul, 58; mir¬ 
acles of unknown to Paul, 59; 
teaching of unknown to Paul, 
59. 

“Christ” a commonly assumed 
title, 68 

Clement of Alexandria, 65 
Crucifixion, improbable, 53 
Creation, 8, 21, 156 
Creation stories, contradictions 
in, 178 


Design in nature, 22, 23, 24, 25, 
26 

Devil, the, 27 
Drews, Prof. Arthur, 57 

Easter, pagan origin of, 101 
Episcopalian creed, the, 16 
Erasmus, 45 
Eusebius, St., 65 
Evidence, nature of, 93 
Evolution, 31, 155, 180 

Farrar, Dean, 62, 66 
Flood, the, 9 
Forged Gospels, 45, 46 
Fox sisters, 162 
Giles, Rev. Dr., 46 

Gladstone, weight of his brain. 
145 

God, idea of, a slow growth, 5 
Gods, personified forces of na¬ 
ture, 2 

Gospels, when written, 43 

Haeckel, Prof. Ernst, 171 
Haynes, E. S. P. 163 
Human sacrifices, 134, 194 
Huxley, Prof. 144, 161 

Immortality, denied by the 
Bible, 167, 196 

Inspiration, doctrine of, an in¬ 
vention, 107, 214 
Irenaeus, 43 
Isis, 3 

James, Prof. William, 150, 151, 
163 

Jean Valgean, 70 
Jehovah, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13 
“Jesus” a common Jewish name, 
67 

Josephus, 64, 65, 66 
Juno, 4 
Jupiter, 4 


215 



INDEX 


Kaiser, Wilhelm, II, 131, 206 
Koran, the 177 

Leuba, Prof. James H., 164 
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 157, 158, 159, 
160, 161 

Lying, sanctioned by the Bible, 
108 

Lupi, Antonmaria, 48 

Manuscripts of New Testament, 
lost, 45 

Martyr, Justin, 65 
Matter and force, 140 
Maudsley, Dr. Henry, 144 
McCabe, Joseph, 68, 163 
Mill, John Stuart, 165 
Milman, Dean, 46, 61, 66 
Miracles of Christ, unknown to 
Paul, 59 

Murder, sanctioned by the 
Bible, 128 

Myers, F. W. H. 161 
Napoleon, 146 

Nature’s forces personified, 2 

Origin, 65 

Osiris 3 74 77 

Ostwald,’Prof. Wilhelm, 167 

Palladino, Eusapia, 162 
Paul, St., Christ of Gospels un¬ 
known to, 57-61 
contradicts Gospels, 97 
Personal God, a contradiction in 
terms, 18 
Pharaoh, 9, 10 
Philo, 63 

Plagues of Egypt, 9 
Plato, 151 

Pope Hadrian, I, 55 


Religious persecution, upheld 
by Bible, 120 
Remsburg, John E. 63 
Renan, Ernest, 49 
Renaissance, 71 
Resurrection, the real, 103 
Robertson, John M., 57, 68 
Romanes, Prof. G. J., 144 

Sabbath, 197 
Sacrifices, 192 
Sanhedrin, Jewish, 84 
Schmiedel, Dr. Paul W., 57, 81 
Shakespeare’s characters, 70 
Sidgwick, Prof. 163 
Slavery, upheld by the Bible, 
116 

Smith, Prof. Robertson, 46 
Spencer, Herbert, 171 
Spiritualism, 160, 161, 162 

Tacitus, “Annals” of, 66, 67 
Telepathy, 159 
Tertullian, St., 65 
Theopholis of Antioch, 43 
Trinity, doctrine of the, 15 
Tyndall, Prof. John, 171 
Tyranny, justified by the Bible, 
133 

Vedas, the, 177 

Warburton, Bishop, 66 
Wells, H. G., 30 
Westcott, Bishop, 62 
Whittier, 119 
Witchcraft, 28 

Zeus, 4 

Zend-Avesta, 177 
Zoroaster, 170 


216 







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